Get one for the home as well. You
know you need your sleep, and so, knowing how much sleep you need -- cross that
much time off the list. You probably have a job which requires you to be there a
certain amount of hours each day. The rest of your time is for the important things
in your life- , time with your families, hobbies, community activities, etc..
While you can attend a seminar on managing time, and perhaps it would be helpful,
you can get started right away to do certain things that are likely to give you
"more" time in your life.
The trick is learning a technique to manage the time you do have, by learning
a system for stretching the moments. Hopefully this article will give you a tip
or two to help.
Spend Some Time
A good rule of thumb is nine hours for sleep (which includes getting ready for
bed, plus any rituals that you do in the mornings, like showers etc.), eight - eleven
hours for work (depending on the length of your commute), and the rest for your
other interests. Many people do not allocate enough time for sleep. This is one
of the costliest errors, you can make as being sleep deprived can and will diminish
the quality of everything else in your life.
There are several mind sets you tend to get into the can impede your management
of time. One of them is "I'd rather be doing something else." The best way to overcome
this is to allow yourself the time that you want to do an activity as a reward for
completing a task that you're not very motivated to do. Thinking about the pleasure
you'll get after the task is completed, and sometimes enough to get you through
doing it.
As an example, you can go to that movie you've been wanting to see after you've
cleaned the bathroom room like you've been promising yourself.
Prioritize
Another mind set is feeling as if starting a project is an exercise in futility,
so why even bother starting? There is a skill involved with being able to "chunk"
or break up projects into manageable pieces, and it's pretty simple to learn.
A good tool for chunking time management is a master list. Start by brainstorming
as it gives you a chance to write down everything you've wanted to accomplish. Make
a list for business and for home, and then break it up by priority, and then by
time completion. You can make the master list while you have your coffee in the
morning or during your commute. If your commute a short or you work out of your
home. Go ahead and make sure you set aside 20 minutes for half an hour to do this
each day until it's done.
Write down everything that you can think of, it doesn't have to be realistic.
When you rework the list to a project with small manageable tasks.
Be sure to complete the tasks that you don't want to do first, so you can get
them out of the way. You may want to interspersed them with some tasks you do want
if possible to break it up a bit. Cross off items as they are completed to get a
sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. Doing the list exercise at home will
be good training for getting tasks that you'd rather not do-- done.
