How to Improve Time Management
In this chaotic world in which we live, learning how to improve time management is something most of us would find beneficial. All to often people are left with the feeling that there is not enough hours in the day to get everything done, and so they go to bed feeling exhausted and stressed, dreading what tomorrow’s rat race will bring. So how does one go about improving time management? Mostly it is about scheduling and prioritizing. A few minutes of planning at the start of the day will pay dividends to your life by the end of the day. Here are some hints and tips as to how to begin your day.
- Set an alarm to wake you so that you have some time for yourself before you begin to accomplish the tasks before you. That way you will be able to take a relaxing shower and eat a healthy breakfast. If you are already stressed before you begin your day it will only get worse from there on.
- Take a few moments to stretch and do some light exercise. If you are religious in anyway spend a few moments in prayer to the God of your choosing. If you are not religious do something that will uplift your spirit. Now that you have relaxed you have effectively made the day your own. Go on with the attitude that you are the master of the tasks before you and they are no longer the master of you.
Now you are ready to begin managing your time.
- Sit down and list out everything that you need to accomplish today. Write down every meeting every goal, every project that will appear on agenda.
- Write down if certain tasks have to take place at particular times. For example if you have a meeting at 3pm make sure it is noted.
- Take a moment to assess how long each task will take to be done. Factor in, if you have to travel to get there and be generous in allowing time. If something can be done in 30 minutes allow 45.
- Prioritize all your tasks from important to least important.
- Decide which of the tasks can be rescheduled if there will not be enough time to complete everything today.
- Schedule all the tasks you have to accomplish allowing downtime for yourself. When you schedule tasks note what you will need to accomplish everything. Schedule tasks that are in the same location together if you can to minimize travel time. Note which tasks to forfeit if something unexpected happens.
- Make sure you schedule a hard finish time that will allow you time to relax and wind down at the end of the day.
You should use a similar method at the beginning of each week and even each month. You won’t necessarily need to be as detailed as you would in your daily plan, suffice to say that each week you will try to assign tasks to days of the week. For the monthly plan it may be easier to set goals by certain dates, for example, by the 15th I will have completed the accounts for a particular contract and by the end of the month I will have built the space rocket. If you notice that you consistently have too many tasks to fit into your schedule then it is time to rethink how you are living your life. You will have to take stock and look at which areas of you life need to be scaled back or delegated to somebody else. Be careful not to assume all work related projects are important and your personal time is less important. No one ever went to the grave wishing that they spent more time at the office. If you are looking for less stress whist achieving more learning how to improve time management is something that will be of great benefit to you. It will also help you discover what things are important to your life and what is not.

