Time Management - Analyzing and Priorities

Time Management – Analyzing and Priorities

Analyzing

The key to managing time well is too make sure your activities are consistent with you goals. That they will help you achieve your intended results. Everything you do either helps you or hinders you.

Good time management is a systematic way of thinking and working. It requires that you constantly analyze what you are doing and look for ways to improve.

Keep a record of how you really spend your time from2 to 4 weeks every year. A month is usually best. The first three days are tough; after that it becomes part of your daily routine.

Ask questions to help analyze your time, i.e. :

-. What problems do you see ?

-. What habits, patterns, or tendencies so you see ?

-. Was the first hour of the day productive ?

-. What was the most productive time of the day ?


Priorities

Think carefully about what priorities mean to you, about how you decide what is really important. Remember, you will never have enough time for everything, but you will always have time for the most important things.

Most people start with the quick, easy, or enjoyable tasks. Instead start with the most important tasks.

Important activities are those which help you achieve your goals

Learn to distinguish between important and urgent. Any activity falls into one of four categories :

-. Important And Urgent
-. Important But Not Urgent
-. Urgent But Not Important
-. Neither Important Nor Urgent

Just because something is urgent does not mean it is important.

Don’t ignore activities what are important but not urgent. If you do, they will escalate to become urgent and important, and you will have another crisis on your hands.

Identify the importance and urgency of issues that you plan to tackle each day.

Don’t always do someone else’s requests at the expense of your own top-priority tasks. Learn to say no. Do it logically, firmly and tactfully.

If you have any of the following common priority habits, change your ways immediately, i.e. :

-. Doing what you like to do before you do what you don’t like to do

-. Doing easy job before hard jobs

-. Doing quick tasks before time-consuming tasks

-. Doing urgent things before important things

-. Doing small jobs before large jobs

Personal priorities can sometimes conflict with work priorities. Be sure you know how to tell them apart.

Realize that despite what you say is important to you, what you do reflect your true choices and priorities.

Time Management

In order to do work, we all need time. Many people who have high work demands think they have to work harder and longer. Therefore they spend a lot of their time and energy in their work and ignore their other needs. They become rushed, pressed for time and always have many things they want to do but cannot. Symptoms of people who are pressured by time are :

-. They look busy
-. They become irritable
-. They become critical of others
-. They look for excuses for what is happening

Your time is one of your most valuable resources. You have the opportunity to make it whatever you want. Take into account your personal needs and start controlling your time instead of letting it control of you.

Here are some general guide lines which should help you manage your time efficiently :

-. Set up a fixed daily routine. Schedule your definite times for definite matters.

-. Do the things that require maximum brain capacity when you are at your best.

-. When you start a piece of work, finish it. If you split it up too much, you waste time warming up each time you start again.

-. Think first, and then act. You must consider the decision making process first before you do anything.

-. Avoid time-wasters.

A time waster is a cunning enemy which creeps upon all of us quietly and unsuspectingly. It will absorb more and more of your valuable time, until you have been captured by it.

Be careful about making assumptions; perhaps you may not be true. Just like below statements that people assume they are right but actually they are false :

-. Most people are overworked, owing to nature of their jobs (false)
-. People at higher levels make better decisions (false)
-. Most people can solve their time problems by working harder (false)
-. Most of the ordinary daily activities don’t need to be planned (false)
-. Most people know how they spend their time (false)
-. Managing time does not allow for spontaneous actions (false)
-. The more urgent something is, the more important it is (false)

Your time management system should reflect your unique personality.