Six Foundational Reasons for Managing Your Time
Most of us know how to manage our time. It is pretty simple really. What most of us miss are compelling reasons to manage our time. We know the “how” but miss the “why.” Here are six foundational reasons I have that motivate me to manage my time and myself properly.
It is a matter of stewardship. I view my life as not my own. I am merely a steward of it. I am given control over it for some 70 years and I should make wise decisions with it! This is a great sense of responsibility that compels me to manage my time.
It is a matter of personal fulfillment. When I get to the end of my life I want to be able to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction that I have lived well, helped others, and achieved much. This drives me to not waste time but to use it wisely.
It is a matter of providing for and being responsible to your friends and family. I owe some of my time – serious amounts – to my friends and family. If I let myself get out of control, they suffer the loss and that is something I do not want for them. I manage myself and my time so that I can give valuable portions of it to those who matter most.
It is a matter of accomplishment and purpose. I manage myself and my time because I want to fulfill my mission here. That is to use my abilities to enhance the lives of others. If I don’t manage myself, I hinder my ability to accomplish what I want and to fulfill my purpose. This drives me to manage right.
It is a matter of self-control. This and number six are closely aligned. One of the reasons I manage myself closely is because I can! Imagine that. What separates us from the animals is that we do not live by instinct, but by self-control and choice.
It is a matter of choice. See number five. I can choose when and where I will spend my resources. That in and of itself sounds like fun!
I am sure you can come up with more reasons, and I would encourage you to do so!
About The Author:
Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the President of
Made for Success, a company helping individuals and organizations turn
their potential into performance, succeed in every area of their lives and
achieve their dreams.
To see Chris “live” at the upcoming Jim Rohn Weekend Event as he speaks on
the subject of Secrets of Influence go to
http://Chris-Widener.InspiresYOU.com/ or call 800-929-0434.
Team Efforts in Time Management
Family and co-workers are a part of the team of people that you should include in your time management plan. When you promote confidence and motivation to your team, you are taking the first step in making your plans work. Time Management is essential in any success strategy planned. If you are not into cramming, rushing, or failing it is wise to get ahead by setting a time management plan that includes each person that works around you.
If you have family time, management is important since you do not want to neglect the people you love the most. This is part of your team, and when they are neglected, you are affected. When you are planning a time management schedule, it is wise to include all details of your life into the plans. For example if you are making a list of tasks, then you will include sleep, waking hours, meals, job, family, entertainment, social, chores, travel, and so on.
Try to avoid planning a task list that works against your schedule. If you set a time in the day to eat a meal, then make sure that is the time you will dine. There comes time in our lives where we may have to modify our schedule but try to avoid this if, at all possible. If you need to check off your list this is great for keeping up with a schedule. Checking off your list only assures you that your time management is working.
Another helpful tip is to determine what tasks take longer than other tasks. For example, if you work and are expected to handle a large project, be sure to take care of the bigger tasks and work down to the smaller tasks. By handling, the bigger tasks first will save you time, since the smaller tasks will be easiest and you can then find more time for your team members. If you work as a team at your employment, then try to include your team in the time management plan as much as possible. When teams work together, there is always more time for other details that are needed to be fulfilled.
You want to include time in for the family also. If you work long hours, you might want to cut back on the hours by getting your work done. Some of us tend to lax when we are working. Do not waste time chitchatting if you have work that needs to be fulfilled. Get the work done first. Teamwork is where it is at, since no one person can stand-alone. However to make team effort work, collaboration is essential.
Teamwork is essential when working out a time management plan. The key to success is taking necessary precautions to prevent communication leakages within a business. Teamwork that instills motivation and confidence is the primary focus of getting the plans in action. When you have confidence, and motivation, you have the primary keys to getting on the road to managing your time. Communication is an important ingredient that makes time management fall into place.
© 2005 www.your-offical-guide.com; All Rights Reserved
Steve Hall is the owner of http://www.your-official-guide.com, your one-stop location for getting the information you are looking for on a wide ranging and ever-growing list of subjects.
Need to get more time? Try the Soundview Executive Book Summaries.
Learn to Manage Your Time Effectively ==>Click Here
Where Did My Time Go, Why Can’t I Manage
Have you ever wondered where you time went? Sure you havewe all have at one point in our lifetime. We all sit around looking back at a series of wasted time we invested and wonder where the time went. If we would have planned, organized, worked hard, and set goals, we would be looking back wondering how we can move beyond our already achieved goals.
But no, we did not have a plan, set our goals straight, stay organized, or worked our booties off to achieve the goals we planned. Don’t complain you did it!
Planning Ahead
Planning ahead is a step to managing time. When we plan ahead, we are setting goals that we can achieve over a course of time. Planning is the process of devising or projecting a realization of achievement. Therefore, when we are planning we should plan both short and long-term goals that we can meet. If we over dramatize our goals, we will be sitting on a couch looking back wondering where our time went.
If we start out with smaller goals and work to achieve these goals, our long-term goals will be an easy ride uphill. Unless you have some terminal disease, you always can reach a level of completeness, as long as you are planning a head, reaching for achievable goals, and making the effort to get to the top is the key to success. We all make mistakes, but the trick is to learn from those mistakes.
If your plan is in action and you find a problem area has developed, step back and take a good, long look at what caused the problem. If the problem occurred as a direct result of your planning scheme, then you know right of the bat that your plans need modification. Time management is the process of making plans work, by developing skills and using actions that make the process run smoothly.
Do not sit around looking back, since this too waste time if you are not doing anything about it. Take the step to developing a scheme that works smoothly with your schedule and situation. When you are planning before sure you calculate factors that could change your planning scheme. Changes such as weather disasters, lost data, changes in relationships, family, and so on are some of the factors you should calculate into your planning scheme for time management.
Don’t fool yourself into believing that nothing ever changes. The fact is everyday all things are changing as a direct force of reality. The key then is to move forward with caution, yet not worry about everything that is changing around you. If it is going to happen it will, but don’t let it be an accident or incident caused by your negligence in time managing planning.
Everyday, if possible, you should make list of the tasks you want to achieve and work through those tasks until they are completed. Anytime we complete a task, we are encouraging our self-esteems and promoting motivation.
© 2005 www.your-offical-guide.com; All Rights Reserved
Steve Hall is the owner of http://www.your-official-guide.com, your one-stop location for getting the information you are looking for on a wide ranging and ever-growing list of subjects.
Need to get more time? Try the Soundview Executive Book Summaries.
Learn to Manage Your Time Effectively ==>Click Here
Taming The Procrastination Demon
Are you like many people who put off what you know you should do in your daily life? Is the basement, the closets, your office, the garage, the yard work all demanding your attention? We all delay doing some chores, but if you are finding yourself with more and more undone projects, maybe you are a victim of “procrastination”. This gets to be a really demoralizing situation. If you accept the challenges that life provides, then you are more likely to live many years longer than those who spend their lives stressing about “getting things done” and never making the necessary moves to accomplish what needs doing.
If you are not being challenged in your daily life by your work or your living situation, then maybe it is just fear holding you back and you need to accomplish much more. Fear grips you so that you are not able to accomplish what you desire and so you put it off, making excuses not to accomplish the project. Eventually this can become a habit throughout all your facets of living. This article will attempt to reinforce your zest for a challenge, to enable you to take chances, to overcome rejection and to step up to the plate when you know you have things that need attention.
Here are some steps to take immediately:
1. Be organized – I know that this is a hard goal to reach. But, start out small to accomplish the larger goal. Make a project chart for your larger jobs and put the smaller projects on your daily chart. Organize your day with a “TO DO LIST” and put the items down as rapidly as possible and do not worry about what order until the page is filled up. Then go back and rank what is most important and circle the item, make a star by that item, or otherwise note their importance. This way you can let the other items fall below what is most important and you can get to them later. What you do not get done one day can be added to the next day’s list. I know this can be a hard habit to get into, but once you do it for a week or two, you will find it will be hard to get to sleep without your list made for the next day.
2. Divide Major Projects – If a project seems overwhelming, then have a major project list and divide each segment into smaller tasks. For instance, let’s say you want to clean out the garage. (At my house, that is a MAJOR project!) On Monday, you can go through the stuff that looks like it should be going to Goodwill and box that up. Tuesday, you can do an easy chore of taking it to Goodwill. Wednesday, you can arrange all like items in separate piles. For instance, yard tools, lawn furniture, sports equipment, household tools like step ladders, tool cabinets, brooms and mops, things of that nature. On Thursday, you can map out how much room to allow for each category because maybe you have too much lawn furniture based on the space you have or maybe you want to devote more space to lawn furniture and less to sports equipment. Whatever your lifestyle is, this is the way to organize it within the garage area. On Saturday, move everything that you plan to keep out of the garage and clean the shelves and floors and windows. Then put it all back and arrange neatly based on the space sketch you have. On Sunday, enjoy having a place to park the car, finally. It is all a matter of doing little bits of associated action and keep moving to the final goal.
3. Just get started – When you find yourself making excuses and putting things off, then you know that you are letting yourself go down the road to being a prisoner of the demon called procrastination. Just do not let yourself provide excuses. Start with your easiest task and proceed from there. You will have a greater sense of accomplishment when you make small insteps to the greater project than if you do nothing at all.
4. Outside help – Enlist outside help if you find it necessary to finish a project. There is nothing wrong with having help, whether you have to hire outside help or whether you encourage your family members to help on some projects. The idea is to make a goal sheet and keep on the projects you know are needed around your place and pick a start date so everyone knows how to schedule their time to be involved. A family that cleans together keeps the place cleaner for the next time!
5. Reward Yourself – Finally, reward yourself and your crew when you finish a project. Getting a job done has taken a lot of effort, and you need to be good to yourself for fighting the procrastination demon. There is a wonderful feeling which comes over us when we know we have done a good job and can see the fruits of our labor. That is how the world works. As it has been said, this is a kill and eat world. You have to know how to make yourself set goals, work through the human desire to put things off, and finally to feel the sense of accomplishment and reward with completion of a project.
Ok, now, get out those pens and papers and take a mental trip across your home, your business life, and your personal or religious life. What needs to change? How soon? Will you take my advice and banish the procrastination demon and finally feel the reward for accomplishment that you may have been lacking recently? And make no mistake, the procrastination demon can come on you at any time, in varying degrees, and you must take a stand and banish the demon with whatever steps you feel necessary. Do not put off having the things you want in life because you procrastinate. Give yourself the satisfaction of accomplishing the things you need and doing them within your goal period.
© 2005 www.your-offical-guide.com; All Rights Reserved
Steve Hall is the owner of http://www.your-official-guide.com, your one-stop location for getting the information you are looking for on a wide ranging and ever-growing list of subjects.
Need to get more time? Try the Soundview Executive Book Summaries.
Learn to Manage Your Time Effectively ==>Click Here