Good time management is not a matter of big steps and radical change. It is much more a matter of a series of small steps, taken regularly - a thinking process, applied rigorously.
Here are some suggestions for things that work. You may already be doing some of them without feeling that you are on top of things, and I suggest you try to do them ALL, at least initially.
1.Record what you do with your time. I spoke about that in my last article, and I cannot stress enough how important this is. There is just one problem: You need to be honest with yourself!
2.Set goals. Daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals. Have your long-term goals written down, so that you can check whether the short-term goals you are setting actually make sense in the context of the big picture.
3.Plan your month, your week, your day with your goals in mind. Make the daily plan the night before, without fail. That plan needs to be detailed.
4.Organize your life. Deal as briefly and efficiently as possible with mundane things that demand your time. Housework or gardening, to use a simple example, do not deserve to be top of your to-do list if you want to achieve something other than a clean house and a neat garden.
5.Prioritize. Make a list of things you must do and have no control over. Then add the things you want to do and have control over. Order these according to importance. (Keep in mind that what's important and what's urgent are often two different things.) Here is an important point: When you tackle your to-do list, always do the biggest or hardest or least attractive task first! Look at your list, identify the thing you really want to push to the end of the list and DO IT! You will feel great once you have completed it, and the rest of the list will look so much easier.
6.Overcome the urge to procrastinate. I bet procrastination is the elephant in the room if your time management is not what you would like it to be. Keep your eye on the to-do list until you have achieved something. Don't even consider delving into your emails, checking the football scores, turning on the TV, visiting Facebook or whatever your time thief is, until you have earned a break from your to-do list.
7.Distinguish between tasks that need to be done properly - where you need to aim for quality, and tasks that just need to be done, and give each the time it deserves. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Not everything has to be done perfectly; sometimes just getting it done is enough.
8.Avoid paralysis through analysis. This one springs from the last point. Sometimes we get so hung up on studying something until we know all there is to know. The problem is that every day something new appears, and unless we call a halt, stop studying and start doing, we will never actually get started!
9.Multi-task one at a time. This is particularly for women: We are forever being told that we can multi-task, and consequently we think we ought to be able to do that successfully. The most enlightening piece of advice I have heard on that topic in years comes from Shawn Achor, Harvard professor of Positive Psychology, who says: "Multi-task one at a time". He points out that, if you do more than one thing at a time, the quality of your work decreases enormously. I think that is worth remembering.
10.Reward yourself! When you have done what you set yourself to do, stop. Turn away from your work. Do what you want to do. And when you watch TV or surf the net or whatever, do it without regret, without a tinge of guilt. Be in the moment.
