There is no doubt about it, we are all busier than we have ever been before with the pace of modern life speeding up as technology and demands on ourselves become almost unbearable with work, study, family, socializing, love and everything in-between. More than ever we cannot afford to waste time lest we start sacrificing the things we want and need and piling increasing pressure and stress on your mind. If you feel this pressure starting to weigh on you and want to be more productive and happy use these personal time management tips to get the most out of your day.
- Break It Down - While everything in your life added together may seem daunting they are all really made up of many small tasks. So in this tip, instead of trying to plan everything all at once in a haphazard way you need to break down all the tasks in your life into smaller sections and write them down. When at work you may divide all the regular things you do in a day into a list and then add other less regular things as well so you have them listed. This doesn't do much yet but now you are looking at a heap of small tasks you know you can do easily individually not an overwhelming group of work.
- Prioritize - Not all tasks are created equal, during a day or a week or a month there may be some tasks that are more important than others, some need to meet deadlines, some might cause more trouble if left till later and so on. On the other end there are some tasks you simply do not need in your list any more, certain items in your break down list once you look at it in smaller bundles may be removed if they are irrelevant in the long run. In between these you must place all your other tasks in some priority order. There is a danger in this to lead to procrastination and you spend so long deciding priorities that you waste more time prioritizing than doing! If you are unsure either put the offending items aside for a time and come back to them or just put an approximate priority to it, the important thing is you have a to do list
- Organize - Now you have your to do list it is time to organize them into your day, try to do the high priority things first but do not waste time jumping from task to task if that is not efficient, try to bundle smaller items that can fit in with the high priority tasks. For example if you have two high priority items in two locations far apart and smaller tasks to do in each do not waste time traveling between the two just make sure they get done in an orderly manner with as much smaller tasks in the same location in the time you have. As common sense as this may seem some people spend much of their time running from crisis to crisis leaving a trail of uncompleted work behind them which spark more problems!
- Sustain - Hopefully you see the strategy behind all of these tips and can start implement this sort of planning into your professional and personal life to make the most of your time. There is a danger however to over plan as I mentioned, if you are a meticulous sort of person you may already be doing this and the key to stop wasting time is to plan less in fact! You must make sure your planning is sustainable meaning the time spent planning must actually give you more time in the long run not break even or run at a time loss!
Personal Time Management is a keystone to success in this busy world and those that good make use of their time can enjoy more of their life and get more success from it than those who mismanage their tasks and end up overwhelmed.
Are you tired of stress and wasted time?
Do you find it hard to stop procrastinating and start doing?
If the answer is yes then click below to find out how seriously successful people have overcome the exact same problems!
http://betteryourself.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/beat-procrastination-with-time-management/
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