Personal Time Management

Personal time management is about getting off the treadmill of jumping from crisis to crisis and taking control. Personal time management boosts effectiveness and gets things done.

There has never been an age when we have managed to get so much done, yet at the same time be so overwhelmed with information, emails and tasks to do.

For many, work is a constant stream of email, requests from co-workers and customers, phone calls and reports.

"There's just never enough time" is the common phrase as too many demands vie for our attention.

Do you want to achieve more?

Are you feeling overwhelmed and overworked?

Are you having problems managing your workload?

If so, then personal time management can help.

By cutting through the clutter and focusing on your top priorities you focus on your high value activities and boost productivity.

Making a change requires planning - it requires that you develop a time management system that is tailored to your personal time management needs.

Here we provide you with strategies to develop your time management plan.

Know what you want to spend time on

Personal time management is about getting off the treadmill of jumping from crisis to crises, and spending your time on activities that move you toward your goals.

But what are your goals?

Do goals fill you with a sense of hesitancy as you contemplate how quickly your New Year's resolution thawed by February?

But some of the most successful people build a reputation for clarifying a vision, articulating their goal, and developing objectives to reach them.

By setting goals and concrete objectives to achieve them, you have a foundation for good personal time management.

You are able to clarify priorities of incoming tasks and assign them into your personal time management system.

Personal goal setting gives you a view of the horizon to which you are heading.

Goals make today's dream into tomorrow's reality.

How to Set Goals Have you set goals with the best of intentions, only to make the same goals the following year? Do you want to achieve goal setting success? How to set goals gives you tools for setting goals that maximize goal setting success.

Clarify your objectives and milestones

Are your plans specific and measurable?

Can you identify clear, concrete steps to achieve your objectives?

Research shows that having a plan that resembles SMART goals maximizes your chances of achieving your objectives.

When I work with athletes, business professionals, and students, I spend alot of time making their plans specific, measurable, action orientated, realistic, and time focused.

Having clear, measurable actions is an important step to your personal time management plan.

Download an action plan template to start today.

To develop an action plan write down all the tasks you need to do to achieve your objectives or goals. Also include the due dates and resources needed to achieve each goal.

Defend your priorities with objectives and tasks

Prioritizing would be a snap if you weren't so busy.

The problem is that pressure puts off planning.

What with 10 customers lined up and the phone ringing off the hook...Who has time to plan?

A common issue is that in our busy lives we are often jumping from one crisis to the next.

Do you feel as though you are on the treadmill of putting out fires and reacting to the environment around you? This is a stressful place to be in.

Reacting to the environment, rather than being proactive, increases your stress and is not a great way to move you effectively towards your goals.

If you don’t take control of your life, then someone else will!

To get off the treadmill of putting out fires, proactive time management can put you back in control.

But how?

Well you are already half-way there if you have set goals and defined your objectives.

While there is no one size fits all when it comes to priorities, I find that the Pareto principle is a good priority system for my personal time management.

The Pareto principle ensures that I spend my time on those 20% of tasks that yield 80% of the results. This boosts my time management skills and reduces stress.

I stay on the right side of this 80/20 rule by:

1. Structuring my day according to the 80/20 rule.
2. Defending my priorities with my objectives.
3. Ensuring that I write a plan each day in my time management planner that locks in my top priorities.

Scheduling time to stay on the right side of the 80/20 rule

An important part of your time management plan is to incorporate these into your daily and weekly schedule.

Developing a time management schedule ensures that you schedule some time to do the most important things in your peak times.

By mastering these above ideas about effective time management, you live a life of high impact and greater well being.

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