It certainly has the ring of truth to it, does it not? The “digital era’s” promise was one of increased efficiency and productivity creating more leisure time. The reality is that the world has become even quicker paced and more complex than it was before your electronic gadgets came along. If you want more time for family, friends, or self-improvement, you have to make it.
Here are five tips to get you started on carving out more time for yourself:
Evaluate How You Spend Your Time
Without knowing how your time is spent you won’t effectively manage it. Keep a log of what you do every day for a week. Look for time that could be used more efficiently. Can you use your commute time to listen to an audiobook? Maybe you will find that there are things you do yourself that should be delegated.
Plan
Once you’ve learned how your time is spent, try planning each day. Such planning may sound tedious, but it need not be so. Write a simple to-do list which places the highest priority tasks at the top. Then create a daily calendar of your activities to eliminate conflicting demands on your time.
Execute your Plan
Your self-research and planning will be undone if you let competing concerns break in on your prioritized tasks. Say you have an important project to complete. Close your door, hold your phone messages, and turn off your cell phone’s ringer. Silence your email alert and learn to cut out distractions.
Reevaluate
Block in time to assess how your time management effort is going. Are you losing time on afternoon projects because your kids call you after school? Create a ten-minute daily window where you will call them first while taking a break. Adapt the plan to reality rather than giving up on it.
Learn To Say NO
Say no to your own nonessential tasks. Delegate them. Almost anything can be outsourced these days. Many companies offer virtual personal assistants where you can have nearly everything done, from app research for your phone or tablet, to ghostwriting a blog posting for work, to mailing out your kids’ birthday party invitations. Whatever the task, you can have someone else do it.
In today’s digital world, it is about keeping things moving fast. Being fast and efficient does not always equate to being productive. Understanding how you manage your time now will help you achieve task master success in the future.
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