8. Manage Your Time at Work
Although technically we all
have the same amount of time each day (twenty-four hours), time is
mysteriously malleable. Have you ever noticed how an hour can fly by
like five minutes or crawl by like three hours? They say “time flies
when you’re having fun,” but time also flies when you are scattered and
disorganized. If you have three hours to get something done and you
don’t manage your time efficiently, those three hours will fly by in a
rush of half-finished jobs as you flit from task to task with dispersed
energy. If, instead, your time is organized and you are able to devote
your full concentration to one task at a time, time seems to expand in
quantity and quality.
9. Start Small
If you start with too many
goals, too long of a to-do list, or too high expectations for yourself,
you are setting yourself up for failure. Begin with one single time
management step, such as laying out your clothes for the next day the
night before, to save time in the morning, or by vowing that the
counters will be free of dirty dishes every single night, to ease the
breakfast rush. As you master each step, you can add more.
10. Identify Your Time Management Issues
Are you perfectly efficient at work
but your time management skills fall apart in the unstructured,
unscheduled environment of your home? Do you spend all day dealing with
other people’s crises and taking care of busywork, never getting enough
time to sit down and really concentrate on your job? Know your trouble
spots—the places where time is being frittered away.
11. Identify Your Time Management Priorities
Make a list ranking the things on
which you most want to spend your time. Would you like to add family
time first, then household organization time, then some personal time?
Would you like to make time for your favorite hobby, time for yourself,
or time for romance? Would you just like more time to sleep?
Look at the top five items on your
time management priorities list. Focus on those. Be very wary of letting
yourself take on anything that takes your time if it isn’t focused on
one of your top five priorities.
12. Have a Strategy
When the day starts, know
where you are going. Know what you will do. Time unplanned is often time
wasted. That doesn’t mean you can’t allow for spontaneity or a lovely,
unplanned, unscheduled hour or two. Even a whole day of purposefully
unplanned time is well worth it. But time unplanned in which you
frantically try to accomplish ten different things is time wasted, and
that’s stressful.
13. Just Say No
Learn to say no to requests for your
time unless that time spent would be for something very important to
you. You don’t have to be on the committee. You don’t have to go to that
meeting. Just say no and watch that stress that was waiting to descend
upon your life float away in another direction.
If you’ve already taken on
too much, learn to start purging. Don’t let anything waste your time.
Time spent relaxing by yourself isn’t wasted if it refreshes and
rejuvenates you. Time spent pacing and worrying is wasted time. Time
spent enduring a committee meeting you don’t really enjoy is wasted
time. Time spent actively engaged in a committee whose cause inspires
you is time well spent.
14. Charge More
If you are self-employed, don’t waste
time on jobs that don’t pay you for what your time is worth. (This is
difficult until you are well-established.) But this rule doesn’t just
apply to work and actual money. Everything you do takes time. Is the
reward payment enough for the time spent? If it isn’t, ditch it.
15. Do It Later
Do you really need to check your
e-mail every ten minutes? Do you really need to change the sheets,
vacuum the car, mow the lawn today? If doing it later is just
procrastination, you’ll spend the saved time worrying. But sometimes,
when your time is at a premium, you can relieve your stress and make
your life easier by postponing the less crucial chores.
That said, remember that not having
enough time is always an excuse, never a reason. You can make time for
anything if it’s important enough. You just have to stop spending time
on something less important. You have control over your time. Time
doesn’t control you.
