ARE YOU A GOOD MANAGER OF YOUR TIME?

Most of us have a very good idea of whether we have good time management skills or not.  The key is knowing what should you do when you realize that your poor time management is having a negative impact on your business efforts.

In order to seriously improve your sense of time and how to be more effective, it all begins with establishing a sensible “plan of action” using simple and practical steps.

Setting daily goals for yourself is the beginning of a solution.  Start things off by establishing a few easy goals.  For example, take a few days to reorganize your work area making sure that you create an environment that will help you to be more effective.  Also, why not start by making a commitment to start your day’s activity at a particular time and then schedule all of your work breaks in a definite pattern?

If you happen to know someone who always accomplishes a great deal during their day, keep in mind that your days and their days all are of the exact same length – 24 hours.  Therefore, if he or she gets more done each day than you do, it is not likely because of the number of hours to their day – but how they have chosen to use the hours that they have.

 Make certain that as you begin to set daily goals for yourself you keep your goals as realistic as possible.  Don’t over-plan or under-plan, but keep all of the targeted tasks in a reasonable range.  Then on those days that you have committed yourself to follow your schedule, be sure that you avoid allowing anything or anyone to alter your activities – except for clearly emergency situations.  True emergencies do not happen on a regular basis, so you should be ok.

Focus on your daily goals first.   As you begin to succeed with daily goals, you can slowly move into setting weekly goals, then monthly goals as well.    When you set your goals, be sure to also assign priorities to each goal so that it is clearly indicating which goals are the most important that day and which goals could be skipped if you find yourself pressed for time.  And remember, if you find yourself moving a goal from one day to the next, either that goal is truly NOT important or you need to set a much higher priority on that goal so that you will definitely complete it.  Move that goal to the top of your list for the next day.

Even when you have mastered the art of setting daily goals, if you are still having difficulties from time to time, there is a chance that the problem could be a distraction.  If so, make a list of whatever disruptions tend to distract you each day.  Common distractions are unexpected telephone calls, co-workers who regularly barge into your office unannounced,  unscheduled meetings,  etc.  If you work from home, family members can be major distractions, but so can television programs, news reports, or even pets.  You will need to be determined to reduce or eliminate all such distractions.  If necessary, schedule certain periods during the day to interact with your family members so they won’t be as likely to abruptly interrupt you at the wrong times.

Being able to focus on and follow daily goals can work wonders in helping you to improve your effectiveness.  If you have focused on doing this seriously for several weeks and are still having some difficulty, then you should consider hiring a professional to assist you to improve your time management.

This article was written by SDK Hunter Consulting Group

About The Author:

Sherman Hunter and SDK Hunter Consulting Group staff consultants provide global moneymaking opportunities and proprietary strategies that quickly accelerate business activity. You may familiarize yourself with these unique concepts by visiting the SDK Hunter Consulting Group blog located at:  https://sdkhunter.com

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