Friday, September 24, 2010

How To Gain More Time

The one thing people do not have in excess is time. They wish they could extend it, so they get more done. This appears like a limitation to getting things gone. Do you know you can carry out your daily task and still have time for other things not in your schedule?  It depends on how you approach each day.

Spend time in planning.
Using time to think and plan is a time well-spent. Planning is a process that continues until you complete a task. The first step is to analyze how you actually spend your time so you can determine what changes you have to make. Organize in a way that makes sense to you and stick to it no matter the hitch you may experience on the way.

Have a StrategyThe strategy you implore matters a lot in carrying out a task. Each task will pose different challenges.  So you do not approach them in the manner. Your plan should be such that allows you to adopt of modify your strategy if the need arises.

Prioritize Your ActivitiesSo many things around you demand your time, but not all do worth it. If you see your time as precious then you will not waste it on just anything. Give attention to those things in your "To Do List". Ascertain the things that need to be accomplished first so that you can do them accordingly. The activities that do not fall in are not important as far as your time is concerned.  Focus on activities most important to the achievement of your highest goals and on other activities afterward.

Take Assessment of Your ActivitiesIt is a good idea to evaluate regularly how you are spending your time doing activities. Take time out, may be every 3hours to keep track of your activities. It will help you know what you have done, what is left to be done, the time you have spent, and what is left. You will be able to know your time rate of doing things.

Continuously improve yourself
 A river that is stagnant will stink. So also is the person who remains the same. Make time in your schedule to learn new things and develop your natural talents and abilities.  For example, you could take a class, attend a training program, or read a book. Continuously improving your knowledge and skills increases your marketability, can help boost your career.

Self Management

Time is a constant, which means it does not change. 24 hours a day is universal and common to everyone. In the real sense you can not manage time; because it is fixed you only adjust to it. Just like a river that flows, time ticks on, you are the one who aligns yourself to every tick.

Self management is what you need to be able you need to utilize time. Change is a constant, which does not apply to time, but to you. Your evaluation of yourself, affects how you handle time. If you mean nothing to yourself, nothing will mean anything to you. Feel great about yourself, embrace time, live full and fulfilled.

Get Organized
Oraganized yourself by putting things in their proper place. The way you do things, the nature of your surrounding affects your organization.
When do you wake up in the morning?
How does your bedroom look?
What about the files on your office desk?

When you answer these question, you will have a clue as to whether you are organized in the way you handle things. All your activities are tired to time, so if you cannot organize them, you definitely would with time.

Identify bad Habits
Make a list of bad habits that are stealing your time, sabotaging your goals, and blocking your success. After you do, work on them one at a time and systematically eliminate them from your life. Evaluate the time you spend on your PC, in front of the TV, hanging out and even sleeping. You will be amazed that you have spent more hours on nothing at the expense of your goals.
Remember that the easiest way to eliminate a bad habit, it to replace it with a better habit.

Take Responsibility for Yourself
Your ability to respond to change will is very vital. It shows s that you are on top of it and have things in control. Be the custodian of your actions. Be bold to accept responsibility for your actions. When you accept responsibility you take control of changing the results. 

Write down things
A common time management mistake is to try to use your memory to keep track of too many details leading to information overload. Using a to-do list to write things down is a great way to take control of your projects and tasks and keep yourself organized.


Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Personal Time Management.

Personal time management is an essential life skill that only allows people to get things done but gets them done at the right time. Learn time management skills and know the main benefit of that can intensely improve the quality of your life.

The first thing that you need to do is to plan accordingly. You have to realize that planning is very vital in any process. It can help you do the tasks that you need to do smoothly and easily. Try to note down the things that you need to do for that specific day so that you will be aware of them all the time. This is a good technique for you not to forget the things that you need to accomplish. You can cross out the things that you have finished already for you to be able to proceed to the next task.

The next things that you need to do is to prioritize the tasks that you need to do. This is one good way for you do the things that you need to accomplish. Ascertain the things that need to be accomplished first so that you can do them accordingly.
You have to realize that sometimes you will not be able to accomplish all the tasks in one day. You must schedule other tasks for the next day. You just need to do important assignments first by prioritizing them and leaving other tasks undone. You can do the others the next day or whenever you have finished the important ones already.
It is normal that you will not be able to finish some tasks early. You have to realize that you must do the most important ones. Try to appreciate the tasks that you have finished even if you are not through with everything. This will make you feel good for sure. Appreciate the things that you have done so that you will have enough energy and motivation for the next task.
Goals can be achieved if you will be able to manage the tasks that you need to do to accomplish your goals. Try to familiarize yourself with time management basics so that you will be able to do your tasks easily and accordingly. This is one good way to accomplish the things that you need to do.

Manage your time for Success

Time has different values in different cultures. It also has different values for different people. Some consider it to be money. But time is more valuable than money because it cannot be renewed. But time, like a river, is neutral. It flows where it will regardless of what people think about it. Regardless of different views, one thing is clear: it is precious. It is precious because it is a non-renewing, diminishing resource. When we use it well, we can create happy and productive lives.

For Success-oriented person, time is neither a friend nor an enemy. It is a resource.It is a master resource, because you use it to decide how to allocate other resources, like skill, effort and money. Using time well is ordering your actions and organizing your experiences. . These are based on first deciding what is important to you. When you know what you need and want then you can decide how to best go about getting it.

Your goal should be a blend of idealism and realism. It should be ideal because it forces you to reach to a new level. And it should be realistic because it allows you to access your current resources to get started on it. When you decide how to reach your goal, it becomes a plan. When you break the future into time frames, you can measure your progress as you proceed.

Time management is a success tool because it is a process of establishing order over chaos, intention over accident, and purpose over whims.In managing your time, you also have to take into account three influential variables: flexibility, mood, and bodily rhythms. You need to be flexible because things have a way of taking longer than expected. You need to be in the right mood because if you're angry, frustrated, or depressed you'll sabotage your plan before it has even unfolded.

And you need to remember that you are a time clock too. You work with your habits, your cycles, and your mental and physical rhythms. How you sleep, eat, exercise, or relate to others has a profound impact on how you manage your time.When you manage your time, you create specific steps for success. This is the real value of all theories of time management.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Time Management strategy for managers

Your time is quite different to any other resource, as the terms can't be changed:  everyone is a year older than they were twelve months ago there are only 24 hours in a day, no matter how much you try to create more you can correct mistakes made with other resources, but a wasted hour is lost forever. One thing that the most impressive managers have in common is that they are well organised and manage their time well.

 Why improve your time management? Do you always meet deadlines?
Do you have enough time to do the things that are important?
Do you spend enough time with your family/friends?
Do you spend enough time relaxing, taking exercise, enjoying your hobbies?
Are you always content with the amount of time that you have available?
Do you spend enough time thinking about/planning the future of your business?
Do you spend enough time with the members of your team?
Do you spend enough time with your customers?
Do you spend enough time reading and keeping up to date?
If your answer to one or more of the above questions is no, then you could benefit from
improving your time management.
Managing your time is about being effective (doing the right things) as well as beingefficient (doing things right). To ensure that you are doing the right things, you need to have clear goals:

Identify your ‘key result areas’ ie the main aspects of your job where you should achieve measurable results… sales, levels,budget performance, productivity,market share etc.
 Identify specific objectives and targets for each key result area, for the forthcoming year/quarter/month e.g.
increase market share by 1% per quarter,grow sales by 10% by the year end.

Ensure that your goals and objectives reflect the needs of your customers. 
Decide how to track and measure your performance.

Set review dates, to check that your goals and objectives are being tracked.
For each objective, identify the activities or tasks to be done. It is important to prioritise these, so that the
most important and urgent tasks get done first. Determine the priority of an activity in terms of importance
(contribution to your overall success or achievement of an objective) and its urgency (how soon it needs to be done).
  Plan to do the tasks in the following order: 1. Plan to do tasks which are both important and urgent first.
2. Fit the urgent but not important tasks in quickly after.
3. Put time aside when you will do the important but not urgent things.
4. Identify time wasters and resolve to ignore them.
Decide how much time to spend on each activity, considering the time-benefit ratio. How much time is it worth, considering its value?Set time limits and deadlines for everything you do.

Consider who should complete the task. Is it the best use of your time, or should it be delegated to a member of your team? Your time management system will help you to determine what you should be doing now.
  • Avoid distractions and try to manage time wasters.
  • Identify the root causes of what wastes your time.
  • Remove time wasters, if possible, or at least minimise their impact.
  • Review whether or not you are delegating enough.
  • Discourage others from keeping you informed of too much detail.
  • Anticipate what information you need to share with your team and find a time- effective way of doing it eg a short meeting, an email.
  • Only hold a meeting if it’s necessary and be disciplined in sticking to a timed agenda.
  • Avoid interruptions by letting others know when you would prefer not to be interrupted.
  • Learn how and when to say no, to avoid always being led by the priorities of others.
  • Before making phone calls, make a list of points to cover.