Blog for Self Improvement

Here are practical, easy to apply techniques that will help. Once the initial, analytical stage is completed, the techniques outlined here are simple ones that can be applied on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, as a matter of routine.

Preparation Week: the first step is the most time consuming one: analysing your current situation. To establish in what condition your management of time is at this moment, you will need to complete at least a week, perhaps two, of preparation. You will also need to make note of any activities that fall on a monthly basis, such as team meetings, or budget performance reviews.

Recording Your Activity: for one week at least, on a daily basis, you will need to keep a detailed record, diary, or log, of what activities you are involved in, and how long you spend on each of these. Be as detailed as you can, so that you can analyse your activities in depth. The experts in the time management field recommend that you split your day into at least 15 minute periods, and for very busy periods even smaller time periods of 5 or 10 minutes. For example, for that first 30 minutes after starting work in the morning, don’t just write down 8.30 to 9.00 Started work, opened emails, talked to colleagues, you need to break this down into at least three x 10 minute periods. If you have chosen an unusual week, for example when you are absent from the usual routine, on a training course, complete the log for the missing days, the following week. Be disciplined about this. Use a notebook, or diary, or prepare a paper or pc based time-sheet for each day. Take this with you everywhere, or at the very least, complete it every time that you return to your personal work area. If it will help you, get the support of your colleagues, and ask them to remind you that you should be recording your activities diligently.

Analysing Your Activity: at the end of this period you will need to carefully analyse these records. The primary aim is to identify negative activities and events. These will include activities that you shouldn’t be involved in, or could delegate, activities that you are spending too long on, activities that are unproductive, and events which are disruptive or unproductive. Some of the activities that you identify here will be unique to your situation, but some will be common to most professionals, such as being inappropriately interrupted by colleagues, by telephone calls aimed at others, by attending meetings which are not relevant to you, by surfing on the internet, by focusing on low-priority tasks instead of more important, but more difficult, ones. However, it is also important to identify the positive activities and events, so that you can consider how appropriate is the time that you are currently allocating to these. Examples could be how much time you are spending in supporting, or coaching, your team members, or how much time you are giving to the building and maintaining of relationships with others, or how much time you are spending on addressing quality management issues. With a clear picture of how you are spending your time, you can then move on to the next step.

Talk With Stakeholders: these are the colleagues, the teams, the managers, perhaps suppliers, perhaps customers, who have a legitimate interest in how you perform at work and who will be affected by the changes that you will be making. You may also need to arrange discussion with key individuals, before you take the next few steps that follow.

Listing Your Responsibilities: separately from the recording activity, you should make time to review your job description, yourself if it is current and up to date, with your line manager if it is in need of a formal review. The purpose of this is to clarify what your role is and what are your formal responsibilities. It is often the case that, because of poor time management and the problems that this creates, role and responsibilities are allowed to drift, to the point where the individual is not carrying out the activities that they are meant to. A clear picture of what the role and responsibilities actually is an essential part of building a strong foundation on which to plan your new approach to managing your time.

Listing Your Goals: this is another essential part of building that foundation as a professional, a manager or specialist, you will have corporate level and operational level goals which your activity is meant to contribute to and help achieve. In parallel, you will have personal work performance and personal development goals that you should be working towards. Identifying and reviewing these will enable you to clarify them and take them into consideration when you plan the changes that you will be making.

Eliminating Or Reducing Unnecessary Activities: with the information that you have collected and considered, it is now time to take some action. In simple terms this means identifying those activities, events, and periods of time, that are not contributing to you fulfilling your role and your responsibilities, and not helping you to contribute to the achievement of the corporate and operational goals nor your own personal goals. In your action plans, and your daily, weekly, monthly, lists (that we discuss below) you can then ensure that you do not continue wasting time and effort on any of these negative, unproductive, activities.

Prioritising Activities: you may need to talk with your team, and-or with your line manager, possibly with internal or external suppliers and customers, to clarify and confirm what your priorities should be. This could be an opportunity to discuss how you could delegate some tasks to others, perhaps simply because you should not be doing them in the first place, perhaps as a developmental activity to help a team member learn new skills. The aim is to have a clear picture of which are the high, medium, and low priority tasks and events. You can then allocate an appropriate time of day, week, or month, to work on these, and an appropriate time period that ensures that you will be able to complete these successfully.

Preparing Action Lists: sometimes called To Do lists. This is a relatively simple activity, where you look at the tasks and events of the coming day, week, and month, and list the activities that you intend to carry out, and when and for how long you will work on them. You will, of course, need to continually check that these activities match up with your role, responsibilities, and goals.

Starting Each New Day: in reality, this can mean taking action at the end of the previous day, your last task of the day being to plan your specific activities, perhaps as a simple actions or to-do list, with times, perhaps as a list of priorities, that you intend to complete on the following day. Then, on starting work the next day you will have an action plan waiting for you. As the day proceeds, you should review your progress at intervals, and make adjustments where necessary. Then, at the end of the day, draw up the action plan, the list, for the next day.

Building In Break Times: don’t fall into the trap of trying to work continuously, all day without stopping, working through all your breaks, and worse, not taking a lunch break. Overwhelming evidence shows that we need to have breaks, and that without them our performance deteriorates dramatically the longer we go without. You should take at least one short break mid morning, a minimum of 30 minutes at lunchtime, and a short break in the afternoon. Your organisation should encourage you to take these breaks, as it is required by health and safety at work legislation.

Starting Each New Week: try to adopt the same approach as with daily planning. At the end of the last day of your working week, draw up an action plan for the next week, or at least for the first day in detail and the rest of the week in outline. Starting Each New Month: again, adopt the same approach as with weekly planning. During the last week of the calendar of budgetary month, prepare your action plan for the following month.

Strategic Planning: in parallel with the daily, weekly, and monthly planning, you should also have background plan that focuses on medium term and long term objectives. These can be workplace performance targets, such as end of year financial results, but should also include softer, but equally important targets, such as the development of individuals and teams (not forgetting your own, personal, development objectives). They can also include targets such as the improvement of working conditions, or relationships, for example between departments or with suppliers. These longer term plans should be referred to and progress reviewed, on at least a monthly basis.

In summary: without a structured approach to managing your time it is inevitable that you will run into difficulties, miss important deadlines, not give enough attention to your career and personal development, not deal fully with the needs of your team members, allow others to dictate how you spend your time at work.The result is that work will become a burden, and your performance will deteriorate. In addition, others will notice and your performance will be judged negatively. By following the simple, practical, steps outlined here, you will take control of the time you spend at work, and take control of the activities that you carry out. Once you have consistently applied these techniques for a month or two, they will become habit, absorbed seamlessly into your daily work life. You will find that you have less conflict, fewer problems, and you will meet most of your deadlines and targets. You will be managing your time effectively.

Source: http://www.articlecube.com

CJ Williams is a tutor and management consultant currently working with Brighton School of Business and Management in the UK, specialising in Business and Management courses taught via distance learning. The writer, CJ Williams, can be contacted via www.brightonsbm.com

Do you constantly find yourself running out of time? Do you get everything done that you want to each day or do you find yourself with more activities then you are able to handle? If you can relate to these problems then you need some time management strategies for getting organized.

Know what you want

Before implementing any other time management strategies for getting organized you need to know what you want. If you have no goals and do not know what you actually want to achieve with the time you have been given then you will find yourself saying "yes" to everything, even where you should be saying "no". Knowing what you want to achieve keeps you disciplined in your time management.

Write down your Goals

In order to implement time management strategies you need to know what you want, but even people who know what they want do not always manage their time effectively. Strategies for getting organized also include writing down those goals. Take some time to write down what you want to achieve in life. What is it that you want people to say about you when you reach the end of your life? What dreams do you want to fulfill? Write them down and then set goals which say when you want to have achieved them by and how you are going to go about achieving them.

Prioritize

What are your priorities? When implementing time management strategies for getting organized you are going to need to think carefully about what is most important to you. Many possible activities will come your way each and every day and if you do not know what your priorities are then you may find yourself doing all the trivial things rather than those things that are really important for achieving your goals. Priorities should be worked out regularly with the help of a to-do list.

Create a To-Do List

Goals are extremely important in effective time management strategies but they can also be long term and if you do not have other strategies for getting organized then you may not accomplish those goals. Create a to-do list regularly and order it in terms of your priorities. Then you will have a workable plan for achieving your goals and can systematically work through your to-do list, accomplishing those things that are most important to you.

Categorize your activities

When looking at all the activities which occupy your day try to break them down into a number of categories. This categorization needs to be done on two levels. Firstly work out what activities you need to do, what activities you can delegate to others, and what activities are actually not important to be done at all. Delegate those activities that can be delegated, cut out the unimportant activities and then re-categorize the activities that only you can do and that are important for you to do. You may want to categorize this list into categories such as work, family, social, physical (health), spiritual, etc.

Use a Weekly Planner

Once you have categorized your activities the last of our time management strategies for getting organized is to use a weekly planner. Block out times on your weekly planner when you can do those activities that you need to and that you categorized above. Use different colors for different activity categories. Take time regularly to fill in your weekly planner and then review it daily to ensure that you do not miss any important events and that you stick to your goals.

Don't Procrastinate

One of the worst enemies of effective time management is procrastination. It is important that you start implementing these time management strategies for getting organized today. If you wait until tomorrow, you may never put them into practice so start today.

In conclusion, effective time management begins with strategies for getting organized such as knowing what you want, writing down your goals, prioritizing your to-do list, categorizing your activities and using a weekly planner. These time management strategies should be implemented regularly and begun immediately to ensure that you reach your goals and accomplish all that you want to with your life.

Source: http://www.articlecube.com

Manage your todo list. Get JetTask task list software from JetTask.com.

When you walk in the door, you see a stack of papers floating around your desk, and when you go home, just as at the office, you can’t find those important papers you need so desperately to stay out of trouble or make an excuse. When you come home at night, you and your spouse argue, and your children ignore you because you just aren’t spending family time with some of the important people in your life.

Does this sound familiar? Have you ever wondered why? Well, you are not managing your time accordingly so that you reap benefits and the ones you love are happy. You are not organized, so therefore how the heck can you find those important documents? Moms already have a big responsibility and when we neglect to manage our time, our responsibilities turn to chaos.

Let’s face it; it is never easy to stay organized when we have busy work schedules and a family to attend to, as well as other responsibilities. The traditional individuals often store files in a filing cabinet, and clean their room and desk once every week. However, there are people out there that are spontaneous. Some of us even store documents so they are out of sight and soon find those documents are out of mind, until someone calls their attention to the papers.

The key to success moms is getting your priorities straight. If you shop for groceries once per week, you can cut back time by buying enough to last longer, so that grocery shopping isn’t part of your weekly plan. The extra hour or more that you spend at the supermarket can be spent on quality time with the family. This is only one solution to managing your time, but it is certainly a start.

In addition, you can make up a list of your duties, starting with the most important tasks first, and working through the list one at a time. I found this to be a great solution for managing time, since when you work hard to complete one task, the rests fall into place with ease.

If you spend an hour or even one half hour in the mirror, it is probably because you are not feeling good about your self. It takes approximately five minutes to put make-up on, and to stand in the mirror longer is only taking up time.

Hair is also important since our person in general sets an impression. If you spend longer time than needed doing your hair, try finding nice looking hairstyles that are less complicated to style. This is also a great process of the time management solution.

Clothing should also be limited but appropriate for whatever it is that you doing and it should not take less than a couple of minutes to get dressed. Unless you are a model, or actress, overdressing is not appropriate in most cases for every day life situations. If you are spending extra time preparing meals, you might want to consider recipes that are quick and healthy to manage your time mom.

These are a few simple tips of managing your time so that you can spend more time doing the things in life that is most important to you.

About the Author: Author: Connie Limon. Visit us online at: http://www.selfimprovementbook1.com Self Improvement Book is a guide to self improvement, personal growth and self help. It is an organized directory referencing information in other websites on the World Wide Web.

Source: http://www.easyarticles.com

Do you start off a day with the idea of getting certain things done and by the end of the day you haven’t even gotten to the things you wanted done?

Then you should be working on getting control of you, getting control of how you manage you.

What is getting in your way, getting between you and those things you intended to do?

Is it easier to do things that are easier or more fun first?

You look up at the clock and it is break time, so you go take a break, grumbling that you didn’t get to the things you really needed to do. After returning to work, of course there are a couple of those fun, easy things that you can do before you start on the tough stuff.

Doing the easy things first is poor time management. It’s a habit, but habits can be changed.

Do you have a priority list but things lower in priority get done first because of excuses like these:

• This one is easy, I’ll do it first to get it out of the way.

• The whole list of things that won’t take as long can be done fast, so I’ll start there.

• This one is not as difficult…..

You get the idea. Things that you’d rather be doing, things that aren’t as difficult or challenging you’d rather do first.

I believe it was Brian Tracy that said, “Eat the frog first” Swallow the things you don’t like to get them out of the way.

The idea is to do the hard stuff, and more important stuff first. Get them out of the way. When doing the easy and fun stuff first you never get to the stuff you should be doing.

Keeping a time log of what you are currently doing will help you find where your time is going. Make sure to write everything down.

Many times I am totally amazed seeing people coming back from doing their time log for just a week. 80-90% of their time went to the low priority stuff, not the things they should be doing, not the things that are important.

I assume that:

“Over 95% of everything most people do, even people who seem to have it together, is wasted time.” Just think about that! If 95% is waste, then what would happen if you put ALL of your time, or ALL of your employees’ time into the 5% where you should be spending your time. Doesn’t that say that you SHOULD be able to do 20 times as much as you currently are?

Sounds rather far out doesn’t it? Well it’s not too far out. If we assume that 20 times is the ideal, just how hard do you think it would be to increase your results by 50-200% when 20 times is a potential?

Pretty easy really. So, start off by tracking where you are spending your time now, looking for the right things to be doing, and where time is wasted.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:

Get free hints and tips on improving your time management skills at
www.leaders-perspective.com/Time-Management-Training.aspx Alan Boyer The Leader's Perspective

It’s only human to put things off and most of us do. Even, highly successful people find ways to waste time, but procrastination and lack of planning are “time killers.” You can use the following principles for goal setting, in your place of work, or on your next home improvement project.

Another problem, with procrastination, is it can become a life style. Do you know someone who always puts anything off that they perceive as difficult? How successful is that person? Do you want to model yourself after that person?

You know the logical answers to all of those questions, so it’s time to take action. To make maximum use of time, it is wise to develop a system. If you take the following steps you will get much more accomplished and have some free time to enjoy your family, friends, and hobbies.

Plan everything for the following day and into the future. Life doesn’t always go according to a plan, but you can develop a template to avoid wasting time and you can plan free time to read, meditate, play, or socialize.

When you do your planning, make a list of priorities, and itemize them accordingly. Then, post it somewhere that you will refer to every day. You know your own life style, but here are some suggestions: In your place at the kitchen table, on your PC desktop, in your pocket, on your desk calendar, or on the PDA.

You get the idea – it has to be, “in your face.” It is amazing how many clients, I coach, that spend the first four hours of the day getting ready, but getting nothing done. Some business owners show up to work early, and walk around in circles, without a plan.

How many times does this happen to you, in a grocery store? If it happens at all, you need a list. You also need to organize, itemize, and prioritize your grocery list. This works the same way in all aspects of life. It comes down to the old saying about, “putting all your ducks in a row.”

Which brings me to the next key: Make sure all of the components needed for a project are ready and waiting. My Grandfather was a general contractor and I learned much about the sequence of events required to construct a building.

For one thing, roofing materials are not important, at the beginning of the project, but you cannot afford to forget the forms of the foundation, in the early stages of construction. This causes delays, waiting around, retracing steps, and possibly doing one, or more, tasks twice, all because you forgot a step.

The next key is to finish work that you perceive to be difficult first. When possible, put this before the tasks you like to do. You will feel like a prisoner released from your own jail.

Once you have your tasks cleared, use your free time wisely. If you know of something that will be a major priority tomorrow, take preemptive action whenever it is possible.

This carries into the last key: Go to bed early, and use solo time, in the morning, for quiet projects, when you need to concentrate. Reading, writing, and planning can be focused on, at this time, without any disruption. Later in the day, you will not be frustrated by daily interruptions because these “focusing tasks” are finished.

Many successful people take speed-reading courses, to stay current on the latest techniques in their field. What separates the successful from the not so successful? Knowledge, putting it to use, planning your time, and controlling the sequence of events, are the largest contributors to success.

© Copyright 2005 – Paul Jerard / Aura Publications

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
Paul Jerard is the director of Yoga teacher training at Aura in RI. He’s a master instructor of martial arts and Yoga. He teaches Yoga, martial arts, and fitness. He wrote: Is Running a Yoga Business Right for You? For Yoga students wanting to be a Yoga teacher. www.yoga-teacher-training.org

By: Roy Thomsitt

The application of time management skills has tended, in the past, to be thought of as something that is for business life only. In reality, though, time management is something from which we can all benefit in our personal lives as well, and in the art of marrying our working lives with our home and social lives.

Those benefits show in a number of ways, including health, well being and satisfaction with our lives overall. Manage your time well, and you can feel in control of your life, rather than letting events control you. There is no single "method" of time management, either in business or personal life. However, there are various time management tips and techniques, practices and theories, which it is worth knowing about.

Acquiring time management skills is something we can set about doing in a methodical way. Really, we all practice time management whether we know it or not. It is more a matter of whether we do it well or badly. The following tips are for improving time management skills, building on those that you will naturally have. Even primitive man used time management, it was just a lot simpler in those days. Time had to be allocated for hunting, and that time had to be used to the fullest effect possible to survive.

Here are just a few time management tips:

1. Before learning any techniques to help you manage your time, have a clear idea of what you are setting out to achieve. Give yourself the opportunity to get your life in some sort of order so that you can both enjoy it to the full and succeed to the full. If you just apply time management to areas of your life that do not really matter to you, then you will not be progressing at a personal level.

2. Get your priorities clear in your mind, so that they are a natural part of you. This will need to become a habit to be very effective, and you will need to apply prioritizing over a number of time spans. Your long term success will probably depend on your being able to prioritize what you need to do to achieve that success. However, to use your time well on a particular day, you need to start the day with a clear idea of your priorities. that also applies to the week, the month and the year. Your priorities for the shorter period must always feed positively into the priorities in the next longer period, and so on, so that each time period is mapped out with priorities that lead to your ultimate success.

3. When assessing priorities, be ruthless with parts of your life that are not contributing to your longer term goals. Removing the areas of your life where you are wasting time, will free up more time for you to apply to reaching your goals.

4. Always be sure to build your health and enjoyment into any plans. Time for relaxation and exercise are critical to your long term achievements; always make time for proper meals, and keep to a healthy but enjoyable diet. Time management is not an exercise in being macho with your business life; it is an opportunity to build a balanced life for yourself and your family.

5. Once you have set your priorities for any period, write them down and refer to them from time to time, updating them if necessary. Should you appear to be failing, examine why, and reset and reinforce your goals and priorities. It is too easy to slip back into bad habits that inhibit your progress.

6. Be sure to keep a diary and use it to plan out each day, week, month. There are all sorts of electronic gizmos, online planners, software etc to act as aids to your time management. Personally, I think a good old fashioned diary is just as good, if not better. About 18 months ago I reverted to using a traditional diary to plan my working time. That forces me to get away from the computer, even for a few minutes, and think what my priorities are, and what I need to be reminded about.

If you can become better at time management, you will find your life more satisfying and less stressful, as well as being able to achieve greater things. For millions of people, life just sweeps them along in a torrent of activity, or inactivity, over which they have little or no control. That can be very stressful, unhealthy, inefficient, and demoralising over the long term. There is nothing quite like controlling your own destiny to reduce stress and aid success.

Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:
This time management article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website.