Saturday, May 10, 2008

Learning Time Management Skills For Your Personality

While there are many common aspects when learning time management skills most people do not take into account their personality type when deciding on their methods. Who you are and how you deal with your problems is essential in planning for good time management so here are a few common types of personalities, how they waste time and how they can manage time better.

Busy

Busy types always feel there is no time to do anything because they are so busy rushing around fixing problems and working at what they think is important. The problem with anyone who thinks they are too busy is that they probably make themselves busier than they need to be. This is often caused by poor priority planning spending too much time on small inconsequential problems they could delegate or even leave to a less busy time. They also tend to rush from crisis to crisis leaving piles of tasks behind them not done creating more problems in the long run which is a planning problem. To counter this, a busy personality needs to realize while they are a doer they need to set their priorities right and direct their energies to the right problems at the right times. By doing this a busy personality can be very productive.

Talkative

Some people just love to talk and socialize and while this can lead to great relationships and people with this trait often make good sales people the tendency to get side tracked by chatting cuts into their time; often this also leads to this personality type blaming their work more then themselves for their workload. People with great social skills can be a real asset but to overcome their time wasting problems you may think that isolating them from others would help; this in fact makes this worse! A social person needs to be social to feel good and be productive but must also learn that moderation is the key, having a beeper to remind them of the time every now and then can spur them on if they get too caught up and having a space that is isolated to work on important things is necessary for them to avoid interruptions which can draw out their natural instincts.

Meticulous

A meticulous person is very precise in all that they do making sure every task they finish is perfect and in order and completely without fault. The problem is that they spend too much time on each task to get them all done! While the meticulous person might have a good idea of priorities they do not have a good sense of time allocation. While it can be hard to get this personality type to learn a new skillset they can learn to divide their time better. Instead of following one project through until the end they should set a certain amount of time in a day and then change to another project no matter if they are finished or not. While this does not seem to finish things any faster it does allow freshness every time you swap projects that is more inventive and efficient which means when you come back to a half finished project the second half can be a breeze with a fresh look instead of being bogged down in one for a whole day!

If you see some of your own personality in these archetypes you may just be spending your time incorrectly but learning time management skills that fall in line with your personality and your strengths can be more rewarding and effective than a cookie cutter solution.

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Time Management Tips For Students

In today's fast paced society there are more distractions than there ever have been. A liberal free society gives us prosperity but along with that comes consumerism, media and so many choices young minds are inundated with information, decisions and distractions by the bucket load. This has led to a generation of young people trying to learn more than any other generation ever has without any formal time management skills when they need them more than any other generation in history. So to help students who feel they are falling behind and struggling with life and study here are some time management tips for students.

  • Work/Life/Study Balance - Managing your time is something everyone does automatically but usually it is subconscious as we rush from classes to work to parties and so on. While we are in a rush to experience everything life has to offer we trip ourselves up by planning it poorly. If you are serious about managing your time well you should allocate time to these parts of your life and adjust them as you see fit. When you need to study you should not be partying too much for instance which may seem like common sense but most people just try to estimate the time needed to get it all done. Instead actually give yourself a certain amount of time for each part of your life adjusted for specific situations and if you go overtime in one make sure you make it up later. Write it down and adhere to it or you will destroy any real structure.
  • The Boring Stuff - Life can never be eternally interesting and unfortunately there are a lot of unpleasant and boring tasks that must be done. Too many students put these things off until it is too late like assignments and end up doing poorly. While if you put things off you free up time NOW you force all of your boring bits into one massive session that will lead to more procrastination and lack of motivation. Try to do the unpleasant tasks first, and while everyone tells you to do this it never seems to end up working ... so how can we help this?
  • Time Chunks - Sitting and doing those boring assignments or projects early may seem daunting but it does not need to be so. By breaking down the large things you just do not want to do into smaller chunks you can complete smaller sections at a time making it seem like less of a task but there is another reason for this also. If you have a stack of smaller tasks you can allocate them in time "chunks" that have a definite start and end time giving you time to move on to other more pleasant tasks or at least alternate between different but equally boring tasks. Sometimes just getting a few boring things done early in a day then moving on to more interesting things can stop the endless pushing back of tasks and they will be done before you know it!
  • Rewards - All work and no play makes students very dull! Even if you are psyched to get motivated and have good time management do not forget to have fun and give yourself some small rewards for avoiding procrastination and getting things done. You will in fact with good time management skills you will end up with more free time than you have before and you could be stress free come exam time too!

I hope you can use these time management tips for students to study successfully and live the life you want to lead instead of the life that you are forced to lead because you cannot get it together.

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Student Time Management Tips

With the distractions of this modern life, studying can become a nightmare as assignments pile, perhaps you miss a class or two and then you are behind everyone and it all looks so hard! You need some student time management tips to help you sort out this mess and still live a full life!

"It is all too much!"

You stare at the list of things you have to do and despair as deadlines approach and nothing seems to get done in time. The first thing you have to do is stop despairing and start doing! However don't go into it blind or you will end up without a clear goal and plan. First of all let's make that enormous pile of work into a heap of smaller "tasks" that each on their own are manageable. This does not reduce the work in total but it is your first step to good time management.

"So many little tasks!"

Ok, so now you have a heap of small things that need to be done, some of them are easy and some are not, some might be interesting and some might be so boring they put you to sleep but this is important to note. Get all the boring, difficult and unpleasant tasks and schedule them to be done first! Don't put them off do not do them later or later never comes! This does not mean you have to do boring task after boring task however.

"I Hate Doing This stuff!"

As much as you hate doing the boring stuff they need to be done, but you do not need to do them sequentially. Instead schedule your day into chunks of time which you allocate tasks to do. This means you can put some boring stuff in followed by something more interesting so you do not get bogged down in one thing you hate and give up. IF you have not completed a task by the time you need to start another one reschedule it for the next day to finish, starting something new can give you more energy and invigorate your mind rather than bore it to death.

These student time management tips are just a starting point but should help you to learn to prioritize, organize and sustain good study habits that will allow you to free up more time for other interests and in the future long lasting success!

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Personal Time Management Tips For Success

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?

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http://betteryourself.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/beat-procrastination-with-time-management/

Time Management Technique

It is necessary to work compulsory over your day to day time table. Those who follow are always turned up to be different and has resulted best with their competitors. It is necessary to work over time management techniques, which will keep you separate and different from all your competitors. If you work and follow properly accurate timetable prepared following different time management techniques. Ultimately, it will result in efficient as well as it will be over all profitable and effective time management. It is necessary for you to take care of time and work according to your timetable. If you do not follow these techniques then, you will find wasting your so many hours, once time is gone will never come back. So, it is necessary to follow the time management techniques.

Whenever, you discuss about time and money, the vital axiom discussions of time management techniques results in time to be more valuable than money. Here, are few important tips, which will help you out in using your time wisely. Following are few important and top time management techniques.

It is necessary for you to take care and decide about what the required billing time is and when billing work gets finished. It has to be completed in least time limits. It is very important and first tip of time management technique, try to utilize carefully in minimum required time.

You need to follow time management techniques, try to utilize minimum time in traveling as well as in meeting your clients. You meet and serve clients in a single day but at same time, in minimum possible time.

Try to set, regular appointments of your clients to be in touch with them. Well, the client appointments have to be managed in advance. It has to be at least four to eight weeks in advance.

It is necessary to characterized in mined and do not disturb your timetable because of heavy traffics. Try to avoid unnecessary communications in heavy traffics. These are two important tips to be taken care in time management techniques. These both tips are connected to one another.

It would be advisable to keep networking events well in advance a month's time on your calendar. It will too helpful to use this wonderful time management technique. Well, by using time management technique, it will make easy to coordinate your timing with your client appointments accurately.

Robert Grazian is an accomplished niche website developer and author.

To learn more about time management technique visit Time Management Site for current articles and discussions.

Time Is Precious

Time is Precious. We can't bank it like money or roll it over like our cell phone minutes. How we spend it becomes one of the most important decisions we make day-by-day, moment by moment. The choices we make show how we value it and how we value ourselves. For example, one of my monthly tasks is to write this newsletter, so today I have chosen, in this glorious 70-degree sunshine, to sit outside as I compose my thoughts and write this article. Being in the sunshine is a wonderful way to spend my time - being creative is another, and today I have both.

Each of us gets the same number of hours in a day, no matter who we are or what our circumstances, time is the one thing that unifies all of us. What differs is the number of days we get on this earth, and how we use all of our minutes, hours and days.

In my work with clients, what often comes up is a sense of restlessness with how they are spending their days. We want it all - plenty of time with family, friends, recreational activities, work, etc, yet we are often not willing to let go of what's not working to focus on more of what is. I believe we can all feel as though time is on our side instead of seeing it as an enemy. Instead of racing against the clock, to hurry our future or wishing we could turn back the clock because we were happy then, we can flow with it, being present with our experiences and making the most of each moment we have.

How do you spend your time? How do you make the most of each precious moment?

Devote Time to What Matters to You

Are there projects you want to accomplish? Those you know if you just begin it would propel you forward to completion? Maybe you want to spend more time with your family or friends, really enjoying the moment instead of worrying about what isn't getting done while you are having fun. Do you have big dreams for your life and are tired of waiting for "someday" to realize them? When you look at your life, what do you have the strongest burning desire for? Choose that as a place to begin.

Recently, a friend of mine - another coach - and I were talking about this topic. We each had projects relating to our business that we wanted to accomplish but realized we kept putting them on the back burner because other things took precedence. We decided to do something about it and arranged to meet at a coffee shop and spend 3 hours together, each working on our own projects. We began by spending 30 minutes each sharing our goals for the 3 hours, and then got to work. We sat quietly together, with no distractions, diligently focused on our work and at the end of our time together, we had each made great progress. That day I started my "virtual coaching" e-mail. That start inspired me to keep going until it was completed - in much less time than I thought - and it is now available to all those who purchase my workbook.

What do you have a burning desire to accomplish or achieve?

Break Down Big Ideas, Goals and Dreams into Small Pieces

How many times have you wanted to try something new or doing something big, but because you believed it to be a huge daunting task you did not even know where to begin? What if you were to break apart that big idea, goal or experience into tiny pieces, pieces so small, they could be handled in a few minutes? These many small tasks, accomplished each in only a few moments in time, add up very quickly to a large accomplishment. What had once seemed like a monumental endeavor may really take very little time and could even be easier than expected.

A couple of months ago, VocationVacations.com asked it's affiliated coaches (I am one of them) to write a blog for their website. My first thought was, "I have never written a blog, that's going to be a lot of work, I don't have time for that, I already have so much on my plate" I took another look at the request, and decided to break it down into manageable pieces. I would write an outline first of the topics I could write about, then write a few words each day. Well, I did that and before I knew it, I had written my first blog. It only took 30 minutes after I realized it was simpler than I was making it out to be. It also felt terrific to have accomplished something that was new to me - a step out of my comfort zone.

Try it, choose one of your dreams or goals and break it down into small pieces, then take action on the first piece!

Stefanie Zizzo is a career and life coach, author and speaker who works with non-conformists, those who love to forge their own path and are now ready to achieve bigger goals and create their "best fit" career and life. With 14 years experience in career counseling and life coaching, she works with people from all over the world through one-on-one coaching and a variety of seminars and workshops. She is also the author of The Journey From Comfort to Possibility: A Workbook of Self Discovery and Personal Transformation, which serves as a springboard to those ready to stretch out of their comfort zones and experience more of life. Stefanie is certified as a life coach through the Institute for Life Coach Training and the International Coach Federation, holds a Masters degree in Counseling and a Bachelors degree in Psychology. She also serves as an affiliated coach with VocationVacations, The Coach Connection, ThinkWorkPlay.com, and is on the Board of Chix in Business, Inc., a Triangle-area non-profit organization of women business owners who support and educate each other.

Visit http://www.stefaniezizzo.com and click Join Now to sign up to receive Stefanie's monthly e-newsletter and get your free gift, a free sample of chapter one of The Journey From Comfort to Possibility.

Easy Time Management - Maximise Returns

Time management is a simple skill to learn, but one that can bring you huge benefits. In the previous articles we have discussed creating your task list and assigning priorities. Here we look at the key steps to ensure you make the most from your new skill.

Firstly we must revise the task list. Once your current task list is complete, consider how, what and when of your tasks. Specifically how and what you use to complete a task, plus when you do it. Are you doing this in the best way?

Clearly this should be more of a consideration where the task is a higher priority. You could try re-organizing a long working lunch into a short conference call, to focus and improve the task. However, simple adjustments, such as eating breakfast when you get to work to allow you to get through the traffic earlier, can make big gains. It is also possible to combine some tasks such as listening to an audio book / language cd whilst driving. There are now a large amount of MP3 and pod casts available for enhancing your career or simply relaxing. This can enhance how you complete tasks (and make them more interesting).

If possible, estimate how much time you think your tasks will take; give a rough estimate, ensuring that you over estimate where the duration is not clear or the task is new. You may be able to get an estimate of how long existing tasks take you from your timesheet software. Don't worry if you are not sure. This exercise, combined with step 4 (reviewing your progress) can gradually improve your estimating without any real effort.

The last time management step is to ensure time is put aside for monitoring progress. It is important to understand that this is critical to gaining the benefits available to you. However don't worry, it is something that can be quite easily incorporated into your routine. Some people will do this automatically through time recording options that are required by their workplace. However, everyone can benefit from doing it on a regular basis to assess how their time management is really working and how much you have achieved by managing your time.

The best way to approach this is to record how your time is spent over a period of say a week (and be as accurate as possible - not necessarily what goes on your timesheet) you can see where your time is going and critically see if your time is being used on the higher priority tasks. It is often found that the lower priority tasks have crept into the available time, and or you are assisting someone else with their tasks and it has taken longer than the 'can you do this for me won't take a minute' implies.

If you review this log of your time, you can:

1) Identify jobs that you should not be doing and re-assign or remove them.

2) Improve your scheduling of the highest priority tasks

3) Reduce the time you spend on personal activities

4) Improve your estimates of task durations

Looking at this list in more detail, you are probably doing at least some jobs that are not really part of your job, often because it seems simpler to complete the task without referring to another person. If say you choose to revise text in a report given to you for review, it just means you will continually have this job to do in the future. Spending time passing on your critique of the work and explaining why the changes should be made mean the situation will be completely removed in the future. Saving time for both yourself and the person whose work you were reviewing. Obviously, if you are delegating a task it is worth ensuring you make some time to monitor it's completion, although hopefully that can be phased out at the next review of your time.

You may also spend considerable time assisting other people with their tasks, whilst it is great to have assistance and have the favor returned, you must review how much time this is taking from your key tasks.

Scheduling high priority tasks when you are most able to complete them with your full focus stops them turning into tasks you need to fire fight later. Friday afternoon is rarely a time when the key report for a client presentation should be started.

Vital for your planning and time management is the ability to accurately assess how long a task will take. This review of your progress will gradually, without even directly checking, improve your ability to do this. Clearly if project planning is a major part of your tasks it pays dividends to explore this in more detail, but that is not covered in this report.

It is important that once you have completed this task you return to step 2 to identify the task that you really need to do, re-prioritize and continue the cycle refining and improving your management of time.

My final point is to ensure you remember to celebrate the tasks and goals you have achieved. It keeps you focused and ensures you achieving results not just hard at work.

Andy Mann is a business analyst with Pillar IT Services - http://www.pillaritservices.com

He has spent much of his time putting his suggestions into practice working on timesheet projects. His time management tips are also published on the Pillar website which also contains free time tracking products at http://www.pillaritservices.com/TimesheetProducts.html