Time management tips can help you create a framework to increase your energy, your productivity and profitability. If you feel weighed down by daily demands, perhaps you have lost sight of how essential your daily choices are to reach deeply meaningful life goals. It can be easy to get caught up in routines and feel you "have to" go through the motions. All too often, this leads to resentment and procrastination.
But by orchestrating your time management choices with your deepest values, you can dramatically shift your outlook and your effectiveness, too.
Think of how you feel at a concert as the musicians tune up. The sounds seem aimless, and you shift restlessly in your seat. Next, recall the surge of excitement that courses through you as the musicians launch into a powerful and unified performance! Which would you rather have your day feel like? Which is most likely to yield the rewards that your efforts deserve?
Here are 3 easy, dependable ways to unify your energies at the onset of the day. Used in combination with an effective To Do List, especially a Double Column Template, these 3 time management guidelines will help you build focus, momentum and success.
3 Ways to Revitalize Your Schedule
Prepare for this exercise by creating a To Do List or Double Column Template for the day. Then, next to each activity, briefly describe what value it supports. For example, preparing a financial analysis may help you coordinate your business strategies. Shopping for groceries can help you keep plenty of healthy food on hand. Next, look at the big picture. Which of your values is well supported? Which needs more attention? The following 3 tips will help you use this overview to harvest your energy, your enthusiasm and your productivity.
- Create a snapshot of where you deprive yourself. Don't be surprised if your time management choices reveal where you experience the greatest sense of "disconnect" in your life. Quite often, people discover that they are not funding values they say they live by with the time needed to uphold them! The more directly you correlate the areas of your life that aren't working with the amount and quality of time you spend on that issue, the more motivated you become to revise your time choices accordingly.
- Fully own your choices. It pays you - over and over, to give yourself credit. Specifying which values you support with your time choices helps dignify choices you may currently dismiss as obligatory. How much energy do you misuse by grumbling over tasks you "have to" do? That's energy you can redirect to validating yourself for the discipline you have developed, for following through on commitments. An additional benefit: claiming your time choices as intentional may help you break the procrastination habit!
- Budget your time to match. How closely do your values and your time choices match up? Do big outlays of energy yield only small benefits, while significant projects claim only insignificant amounts of time? Time is the currency of your life. The more closely you identify with the benefits your values can bring you, the more consistently you will direct your time and energy where they need to go.
Use your time management to increase your focus on the things that are important to you. So, how can you use your time most effectively?
