Time management tips to save an hour a day

These time management tips can be implemented today to give you an extra hour a day.

Time Management Tip #1. Plan your day the night before.

Research suggests that every hour spent planning saves 3-4 hours in actual execution – and gives you better quality output.

Take 5-10 minutes to plan the next day. This will give you the most immediate time benefits, by saving you 30-40 minutes tomorrow and resulting in better quality work as well.

An easy way to do this is to use a prioritized plan such as this downloadable prioritized To Do list.

The advantage of using a To-Do list is that it will set your mind at ease and remind you of what needs to be done. Secondly it helps you to resist the temptation of doing things that are not important.

Time Management Tip #2. Know your goals

Before you can get down to the specifics of managing your time it is critical to understand what are the important things in your life, and to set goals for them.

Before you can get down to the specifics of managing your time it is critical to understand what are the important things in your life, and to set goals for them.

What things are most important to you? Career? Family? Relationships? Financial security? Health?

The connection between goals and time management is that goals give you direction about how to structure your time to do what is important to you.

If you think that you don't have clear goals about what you want to achieve and how you are going to get there, you can set specific and measurable goals with SMARTer goals, or partake in our 7 lesson free online goal setting course.

Time Management Tip #3. Get Organized!

Have you forgotten what the top of your desk looks like? Do you have trouble finding things? Does disorganization stress you out?

If you answer “yes” to the above then you could improve your personal organization and save time.

Being organized is a battle between a habit of ease and a discipline of action. The easiest way to get organized is “to have a place for everything and to have everything in it’s place”. This is easier said than done, but it saves you time and reduces your stress.

There are a number of good personal organizers out there, however I like this Easy Organizer best, because it leaves no stone unturned in getting organized.

An organizer helps organize the home, the office and even helps to plan your yearly vacation. Often, the things that we need to organized end up on scraps of paper, sticky notes and in a stack of notebooks. An organizer has everything together and consolidated in one place.

Time Management Tip #4. Know the difference between important and urgent

For some people ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ are the same things. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

To make the best use of your time you need to know what is most important to you, rather than reacting to what is urgent.

In our busy lives, people often jump 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 dangerous 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 of your life.

Time Management Tip #5. Know your most productive part of the day

Some people are morning people while others struggle out of bed each day, yet are full of energy later in the day

If you think about it, we all have periods of high energy, in which we are working fast and getting a lot of things done. We also have periods of low energy, where we simply just aren’t as effective.

This may be due to biorhythms or sugar levels in the body. The important thing is that we generally know when we work best.

To make the most effective use of your time, do those things that are most important to you in the most productive part of the day. This capitalizes Pareto’s 80/20 rule, which is a rule of thumb.

For example 80% of your revenue come from 20% of your clients, or 80% of your time on the phone is spent with 20% of people.

This offers a powerful tool for change, as it implies that 20% of your time can result in 80% of your work output.

So by concentrating on important things, especially in your high energy areas, you are much more effective in achieving your goals.

Time Management Tip #6. Tame your email

If you are like most people you receive over 50 emails a day. Email has the possibility to dwarf all other forms of communication - and so it is important to stay on top of them.

Does your email notify you as soon as you receive an email? If you are like me, I find that this interrupts my concentration, and often put down whatever I am doing, to look at the email.

Usually the email is unimportant or even worse, another SPAM.

There are a couple of ways you can stay on top of your email without being overwhelmed or interrupted every 5 minutes.

1. Turn the notify off on your email, so that your concentration is not interrupted and you can continue with your assigned tasks.
2. Set 2 or 3 times a day aside to look at your emails. Usually morning, midday and late afternoon are good choices. Try to choose those parts of your when your energy is low and you are not as productive. The important thing is to check your email on your schedule, not somebody else’s.
3. Assign folders for people that you receive regular correspondence. Using a filing system in your email folders makes it easier to find.
4. Use a the philosophy of Read, Reply, Next for most of your emails. In other words, when you read your email, try to reply there and then, and move onto the next email. Alternatively, leave your replies to a slow part of the day.

Take out email poll

Time Management Tip #7. Use planes, trains and automobiles to your advantage

Travel time is an insidious influence on your time. For many people the daily slog of commuting to work saps your energy and tests your patience. For others, travel is a necessary component of doing business, building relationships with clients and suppliers through face-to-face contact.

If travel is essential to your business then there are a number of ways that you can add value to your time. One way to increase the value of your travel time is to multi-task. For example, a salesman friend of mine listens to tapes and audio books on persuasion and selling techniques. Be creative and find ways that you can combine your travel time with other activities.

If you are traveling for an extended trip, take enough paper work so that you can turn your travel time into productive time. Alternatively, treat the travel time as something that managers don’t get much of, which is uninterrupted time to do those important things that keep getting put aside.

Rather than getting the first plane home, try to organize other activities in the location, such as spending time with the company’s local sales representative, or organize other meetings with important customers.