Another year has passed.  Did we accomplish everything we wanted? How Is Your Time Management?

Like me, I bet you’re thinking a whole year has just flown by again.  Allow me to reiterate, 365 days are now behind us.  As you reflect upon last years’ accomplishments, you see a laundry list of great intentions that went unfinished along with lingering ideas that simply float around like a little balloons.  So you ask yourself, what’s up with that?  Time!  Everyone says it, there’s just not enough time.  Seems to me, time takes the brunt of excuses for not accomplishing our goals.  Piqued by the idea of time as the culprit for unfinished business I decided to do some research.  What  you need is better Time Management.

Did you know that time actually exists in two very different ways.  There is clock time, the rigid, 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, so on and so forth.  Then there is real time.  The time that ticks away all around you.  Take for instance a trip to the grocery store.  You say you’ll be in and out in 15 minutes but while in the store you browse, chat with people and find the checkout lines are at least a mile long.  Before you know it that 15 minutes has turned into 45.  Time is evading, depending on what you’re doing, time will drag on or if you’re having the best of times, it will fly by.

Here is a simple list of ways I’ve compiled for you to better manage your time.

1. Get yourself a planner.  It can be a paper or electronic planner/calendar.

2. Take a moment each morning to go through your planner, prioritizing items that are urgent to unimportant.

3.Learn to log the length of time it takes for certain tasks; You may find ways to streamline them for the future.

4. Utilize the Pareto principle – Which 20% of your activities yield 80% of the results, bringing you closer to accomplishing your goals.

5. Set aside a specific amount of time for checking emails, web surfing, social sites, etc.  Use a timer and stick to the time you allot yourself.

6. Delegate items that others can accomplish, remembering not to stress over the unimportant details.

7. Purge those items in your schedule that will probably never get done, assuming their lack of importance.

Once in the habit of managing your time, one fine day you will be able to breathe a little easier as you take some time to enjoy that shining sunrise as you plan out your day.