Time Management Course
Time Management
Every professional person in the world wants more time. To some time, management becomes an obsession. They seek out strategies and systems that are designed to get more done in less time. Before you go googling time management and looking for all the related articles to time management, you need to ask yourself this question. What is time management?
Time management means different things to different people. We all have different priorities; we all have different goals and things to achieve. As we all have different priorities, we all need to develop our own approaches and systems to help us manage time better.
Below I have provided a wide range of quotes and my interpretation to help you think about how you manage your time. You don’t have to accept my interpretation. The idea is to inspire you to think about how to best use the one thing they are not making more of, the one thing that once it’s gone, it’s gone, TIME.
In today’s fast-paced world, where it seems like we work 24/7, are we really using our time effectively? Use the quotes below to help you reclaim your time and productivity.
You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again. ? Benjamin Franklin
Procrastination is one of the biggest challenges in time management. The number one cause of procrastination is project overwhelm. You have a massive project to complete; it’s so big you can’t even see the finish line. When this happens, it can be hard to motivate yourself.
Our minds can make things bigger and scarier than they really are.
Action is the answer. Break down your “project overwhelm” into small bite-size pieces and then break those bite-size pieces into nibbles.
It is far easier to act when confronted with a nibble than a bite. By nibbling away at your “project overwhelm,” you will get momentum, and that momentum will help stop procrastination and allow you to complete the project faster and more efficiently.
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln
You can’t always prepare perfectly for the challenges ahead, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take time out to prepare. In most cases, the more time you take to prepare, the better the outcome.
How many times have you found yourself in a situation that requires an important task to be completed quickly? In your eagerness to complete the task, you jump straight in with both feet. What you find when you do this is you waste time regularly checking back to see what has been done and what remains to be done.
The more effective way is to start slowly. Take a little time out to prepare a plan. This will reduce the need to check your progress constantly. A good plan is like a checklist. You can clearly see what has been done and what needs to still be completed.
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”
Henry David Thoreau
How are you going? Busy. How’s work? Busy. Have you ever come across people who are always busy? They are happy when they are busy; they don’t care what they are busy with as long as they can brag, they are busy. The trouble with these people is that when you ask them what they have been busy with, they can’t tell you because they have done very little that is truly important. In fact, they probably find it difficult to know what’s important.
All-time management decisions should be based on what you want to achieve. Knowing what you want to achieve will allow you to determine what is a priority and what is not and what actions you need to take.
When you are focused on outcomes, your time becomes easier to manage.
Time Management Course
“If you are not making it happen each day it?s not going to happen”.
Cliff Turner
Once you have worked out your priorities you should start doing them at the first opportunity. Don?t get distracted by what is urgent to others but not urgent to you. This will happen if you are not clear about your priorities.
If it?s not a payday activity, then it?s not important. Just because someone is screaming its important doesn?t mean it is. Just because a not so important deadline is fast approaching doesn?t mean you give it priority.
Don?t waste today by doing things that are important to others. Your time should be spent completing the priority tasks and the rest and be completed later.
“You didn’t have time because you didn’t set aside time”.
Cliff Turner
What is the most common excuse for an uncompleted task? ?I didn?t have time?
The fact is, you had the same amount of time as everyone else, you just didn?t focus on the thing that didn?t get done. You chose to put a bigger value on something else. Being unclear about what needs to be achieved leads to bad choices in time management.
At times your lack of focus will because your workload is too great. You need to recalibrate by getting some work off your desk. You can do this by:
- Saying No.
- Delegating some of the tasks.
The reality is there are very few things that really matter, you need to become focused on what they are.
