How to Have Good Time Management

If you find the hours of your day seem to slip away without you feeling as though you accomplished what you really wanted to - try these simple and easy tips to become the master of your own day!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a mind
• a will

1. 

   Narrow your focus.
   
   Remember: You can do everything you want to do, you just can't do it all at once.

2. 

   Follow the rule of 3.
   
   Write three small, manageable goals for yourself.
   
   Choose 3 realistic goals for yourself. Don't self sabotage by making goals that aren't realistic for your current situation. That will just cause you to become discouraged. Set yourself up for success by choosing goals that you can actually accomplish. For example - don't say I will get this whole house cleaned to perfection - break it down into small manageable pieces - for example: 1: the downstairs bathroom, 2: clean out the silverware drawer, 3: wash the sliding glass window, when you are done with those, make 3 new goals for yourself.
   
   Start small, and build yourself and your time management skills up in a positive way.

3. 

   Calendar.
   
   Keep a calendar handy and guard it with your life.
   
   Write down your appointments and other important obligations.
   
   We are all guilty of overlooking or forgetting things because we didn't write them down thinking there is no way we would forget.
   
   life moves fast, and if you really want to be an honorable person and keep your word and commitments, a good calendar is essential.

4. 

   Monitor yourself.
   
   Knowing how you spend your time will help you make conscious choices about how you want to spend your time and energy in the future.
   
   Use your computer calendar to track yourself in half hour increments.
   
   Keep it open in the bottom of your screen and simply write down what you have done with your time during that hour or half hour will be very enlightening for you.

5. 

   Treat yourself like your own key employee.
   
   Your own hands are the key to getting what you want in life. Treat them like someone you are paying to work for you.
   
   Are your hands productive or slackers?
   
   Are they accomplishing the things you want done in your life?
   
   If you had to write an employee review of your own hands what rating would you give them?
   
   Writing down your 3 manageable goals for the moment will give your hands the direction they need to be good employees for you.

6. 

   Remember this:
   
   When you are choosing to do one thing, you are choosing not to do something else.
   
   If you choose to talk on the phone, take a nap, or watch tv for an hour, you have chosen to not do something else for that hour of your day.
   
   Keep that in mind as you go through your day and know that you, and you alone are the one who decides how successful you will be at accomplishing what is important to you.

7. 

   Make a list of the perfect you.
   
   Writing things down is the first step in manifesting the things you want to see in your life.
   
   Make a list of all of the qualities you want to develop in yourself.
   People with far less abilities and opportunities than you have become those things, so you can too.
   
   A good place to start is by making a list of people you admire and the qualities you admire about them.
   
   Make a list of how you would like to grow and what you would like to accomplish. Knowing this will help guide your daily thoughts and to use your time wisely and to your benefit.

8. 

   Time = life;
   
   therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time.

Tips & Warnings

• A journey begins with a single step.
• The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.
• Shoppenhauer
• Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.
• Charles Richards
• Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.
• Thomas Jefferson
• Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
• William Shakespeare
• This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.
• Charles Darwin
• Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
• Benjamin Franklin
• Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year - and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!
• Anthony Robbins
• Check your priorities
• If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.
• Lee Iacocca
• It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?
• Henry David Thoreau
• Small things matter
• Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.
• Lord Chesterfield

[HouseWifeMafia]

on 10/30/2009 I shoulr re-read this every single day!

[Marilynda]

on 5/27/2009 I'm horrible at time management. Good article

[countitalljoy]

on 5/13/2009 Good reminders, new ideas, and inspiration. This is a very meaty article. 5*, rec