The three keys to business time management skills are: remembering, setting priorities, and motivation.
Remembering
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking "I won't forget that." But the important thing in business time management is not just to remember it, but to remember it at the right time -- a time when you can take the first step in doing it.
Your thoughts are valuable. Write them down, whether they're ideas on how to save the world or reminders to wash the frying pan. Then figure out some way for the messages to get to you at a time when you can do the things.
Use calendars and lists. I have lists of things that can be done at home, lists of things that can be done when the stores are open, lists of things to do before going to work in the morning, etc. By looking at the appropriate business time management list, I can forget about everything else and concentrate on the work appropriate for that moment.
Setting Priorities
If you write a list of things to do this evening, it probably contains way more things than you can actually accomplish. That's fine. The list is still valuable. By looking over it, you can choose the most important things and do them first. The rest can be transferred to other lists.
Some people say they don't need to spend time planning in order to have effective business time management. That may be true. If you have a list of things to do that are all about equally important, and if you're sure that the most important things are on the list, then you don't need to spend any time comparing them. Just start doing one of them, it doesn't matter which one.
But for most people, most of the time, some of the things are more important than others, so it's worthwhile taking a few minutes to read over the list and choose the most important to do first.
It's good to have a pen handy all the time to write down ideas. That way you can catch thoughts about important things that you might have forgotten to add to your lists.
Motivation
You've set goals, written lists, chosen priorities, and identified what's important to do right now, but you don't feel like doing it.
Here are some ideas to help with motivation.
In the book "Feeling Good," David Burns points out that it's not necessary to "feel like" doing something in order to do it. You can just start. Usually, once you've started, you begin feeling more motivated to continue doing it.
I started feeling more in control when I started giving myself permission to cross things off lists. Deciding not to do something and putting an "X" next to it gives a feeling of relief, almost as satisfying as checking it off as done.
Sometimes I graph the total number of check marks per day. This feels good and gives me motivation to finish lots of things on my to-do lists.
Plan rewards and celebrations for yourself, such as special snacks after getting certain things done. Just taking a few seconds to admire the finished work, such as a tidy table or pile of clean laundry, is an excellent reward. Smile and tell yourself what a good job you did.
Even if you're in a hurry, you can plan rewards that take a few seconds, like standing up and stretching, looking out the window for 10 seconds, or tossing a pen in the air and catching it. If you plan them as rewards, they feel like rewards, and give you time to congratulate yourself on getting something done.
Chronos and Kairos in Business Time Management
In Greek, there are two words for time. Chronos means amounts of time, like "20 minutes" or "two days". Kairos means the time when something occurs, like "at two o'clock" or "next Sunday".
We can think of time like money and budget it. We can decide to "spend" an hour on one thing or another. This is valid, but there's a big difference between time and money.
With money, you don't usually ask "should I spend this dollar, or that dollar?" All the dollars are the same. But two different hours are never the same. Different stuff is happening. You're at a different level of tiredness and hunger, and the level of daylight is different. Certain people or businesses are available by phone during one hour but not during another.
So if you're going to do something, it does matter which bit of time you select to do it in.
It can be confusing to try to figure out what's the most important thing to do at a given time. It works out better if you think more in terms of kairos time. Rather than "which of these things will I do now?", look at one of them and ask "What's a good time to do that?" and then schedule it.
Examples: A good time to phone someone is on their birthday. A good time to play with the children is when it's daylight outside. The best time to pay the phone bill is the first time you see it.
