Time Management Training:
Time Management Skills - Setting Goals For Success
Most of us want to live a successful life. We want to earn lots of money, be successful on the job, stay fit and healthy, have a happy marriage, and so on. Still, many people dream of success, but most do not achieve it. One reason for this is that they have not used one of the most basic of time management skills and set goals for themselves. It is said to be that only 2% of all people have written goals, but these 2% achieve the best results.
Choose time management skills goals for yourself and write them down. If you know what you are pursuing, then it is much easier to get it. This is true both in your professional career and your personal life.
But having written goals is not enough. You have to set time management skills goals in the proper way. Many of us make mistakes in this and end up with objectives that are not sufficiently motivating, impossible to achieve, or too easy to achieve.
Here I will give you five principles for avoiding these time management skills problems. For all your time management skills goals, be sure that they fit into these criteria:
1. Your True Goal. Why work at achieving something you really do not want? It is not easy to achieve success and it takes time management skills. If the final result is not what you really desire, then it is difficult to motivate yourself and not to give up on your time management skills goal. It has to be something that you really wantfor yourself, and not what others are expecting you to do. It is your life, and you have to decide yourself what to do with it.
2. Measurable. We have to be precise about what we want. Most people have only vague and undefined objectives, and they are not specific in what they want. They do not go into enough detail. For example, you may want to have a better job. But having such an aim is not enough. It is very unclear. What does a better job mean to you? What makes it better? In making it more clear, you might decide what kindof tasks you would perform, a certain salary, who your colleagues would be, etc.
How can you find out if your time management skills goal is measurable? It has to be measurable in such a way that it is possible to later check if it has been achieved or not. The result of the check has to be meaningful to you. For example, setting the goal "I will study French in 2009" is not enough; if you have learned 6 new French words then you have actually accomplished it. You have to be specific about what studying French means to you. You may set a level of command in French you want to achieve; for example, to be able to read simple books in it, or you could define it as completing a specific course in French.
3. Feasible. Your goal should not be Mission Impossible. The goal has to be something that is not beyond your control. Not everything depends only on you. For example, if you want to eventually marry a certain person, then achieving that goal does not depend only on you. You may do your best, and still not achieve it, because of external factors. You cannot control the other person's feelings and thoughts. In that kind of situation it is better to redefine your aim in such a way that it is controllable by you. You might choose to perform specific actions to further your pursuit of the relationship.
4. Deadlined. You have to choose when you are going to achieve your goal. You need deadlines; they are basic to time management skills. Otherwise you will tend to postpone taking action, as there is always more time to start. You will plan to start pursuing your goal sometime in the future, but the future never arrives. If you have set a specific deadline, then it motivates you to use your time management skills efficiently and not to delay the start. So choose exact deadlines: I will complete my book by Feb 15, 2010, or I will travel to Brazil in October of 2010.
5. First person. You should write your time management skills goals in first person. You are the one who is going to achieve them. So write: I will have my book, "How to Lose 50 Pounds in Three Months" completed by Feb 15, 2010. Avoid using terms such as "I want" or "I wish". Write the goals as if your accomplishing them is a certainty.
Kristjan-Olari Leping: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kristjan-Olari_Leping
Category: Time Management Skills
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Time Management Training:
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