How To Properly Manage Your Time
If you feel that you are not as productive as you should be, this is generally a sign that you are not practicing good time management. Time management is very important for students or people who have their own businesses.
If you have your own business, it is likely that you are carrying out a wide variety of different tasks each day. If this is the case, there are a number of things you can do to enhance your productivity and properly manage your time. The first thing you will want to do is alter your perception of time management.
Even if you are well organized, there is only a certain amount of time available in each day. Time cannot change. If you want to become better at time management, you must change your behavior and the way you look at time. The next thing you will want to do is find out which areas you are wasting time in. Even the most productive people can waste time, and it is important to find the areas that need to be improved. Are you spending too much time surfing the internet? Do you find that you are constantly on the phone? To become good at managing your time, you will want to begin keeping track of your activities each day.
By tracking your activities each day, you will be able to get an image of how you are managing your time. The most important factor in being more productive is to change the way you behave. Once you have begun tracking your activities each day, you can begin to find areas where you will need to improve. But how do you track your daily activities? One way you can do it is by writing down the amount of time you are spending doing things that are not important compared to those that are important. For example, how much time are you spending surfing the internet? How much time are you spending talking on the phone about matters that are not business related?
How much time do you spend reading or talking to people about things that are not business related? If you can write down the approximate amount of time you spend doing these things, you will begin to develop an idea for how much time you are wasting. You may be surprised with the results. While 3 minutes may not sound like a lot of time, it will add up over the course of 8 hours. Once you understand where you need to improve, you will next need to set goals. For example, if you notice that you are spending a lot of time talking on the phone, you will set a personal goal to not take personal calls while you’re working.
If you have a cell phone, you may need to turn it off to reach this goal. If you find that you are spending lots of time surfing the internet, you should set a goal to stop doing it and focus on what is important. This can be difficult for people who have their own businesses, because they don’t have a boss looking over their shoulder. They are the boss. While being the boss can give you large amounts of power, it also comes with responsibility. Once you have set goals that will help you manage your time, you will next want to created what is called a time management plan.
The goal of a time management plan is to assist you in reaching the goals you have set up. Not only will you want to set up a plan, but you will also want to monitor your progress to find out how well you are doing. You may find it helpful to use a software program that can help you manage your time. There are a number of day planners available on the market that can assist you with this. Another technique that can assist you with time management is prioritizing your duties. You should have a list of things written down that you need to do each day. Trying to figure out what you need to do in your head can waste time, and can cause you to forget important tasks.
