3 Best Time Management Tips June 30, 2009

Earlier this week, someone asked me what my 3 best tips were for time management, so I thought I’d share them here.

My 3 best time management tips are:

• Check your email 1 1/2 -2 hours AFTER you start your day.  It’s not a good thing to check your email first thing in the morning.  It eats up too much time, which is not a good way to start your day
• Work according to your personal energy cycles. We all have a particular time during each day where our physical and mental energy are at their peak.  That’s the time when we need to focus on the things that take the most focus or creativity.  Find what works for you and work it
• Plan, plan, plan! Discover your time management personality, choose an appropriate tool, set up your system around it, and set your time for weekly planning.  It will get you to the point of working on the things that are important but not urgent.

Personal Time June 23, 2009

Yesterday I dropped my son off for a week away at camp.  Although this was time I scheduled for him to have some summer fun, I only scheduled a couple of things for the week so that I can have some down time.  I’m using the time to recharge and spend some time with friends and by myself.

We all do so much during the course of every day, and a lot of us go through those days without any down time or time for ourselves.  We put many things on our calendar, but don’t schedule the “me time”  in our calendars and it’s so important.  I see this a lot when it comes to women.  We have to remember that if we don’t take the time for ourselves and take care of ourselves, we can’t take care of other people and things.

The next time you do your weekly planning, ask yourself when you are going to put some time in for yourself, and then add it to your calendar and do it every time you plan.  This is a great habit to have.

How often are you scheduling your down time?

Managing Interruptions June 16, 2009

If you want to have a very productive day, you have to get a handle on managing interruptions.   Get ahead of the game and start by preventing interruptions before they occur.

When you control interruptions and eliminate distractions in your day, you have more time to work on the things that matter.

Look at the things that keep interrupting your day or keep you from working on what matters most.  What are the things that interrupt you the most and why?

What’s interrupting you right now?  What can you do to put a stop to that distraction?

One common interruption is the telephone.  It may not always be possible to not take phone calls or answer the phone, but there are times that it’s possible to have someone take messages, let the calls go to voice mail or place the phone on do not disturb and return calls later in the day.  This is especially helpful when you’re working on one of your top priority items.  You can keep working and know that you can still address the needs of those on the other end of the phone, just not right at that time.

You will be surprised at how much this simple thing can help increase your productivity level.  Try it out and let me know how it works!

Are You Wasting Your Time? June 8, 2009

We live in such an excessive society.  Everything is bigger these days-our homes, our cars (although that seems to be shifting), even the meals that we eat.  As a society we waste so much.

We also waste our time.  The difference is that time is something we don’t have in excess.  We each get the same amount of time each day and once it’s spent, it’s gone for good.

How much of your time are you wasting?  Do you honestly know where your time is going?  On average, individuals spend any where from 1.5 to 2 hours of each work day searching for things-files, documents on their computers, contact information, and the list goes on.  Not to mention the other ways that time gets wasted.  Multiply that wasted time by 5 work days and that’s 7.5 to 10 hours every week when nothing is getting done.  With typically 20 work days in each month, that’s 150 to 200 hours of wasted time every month for the average individual, which means that there are a lot of “to-dos” that aren’t getting done.

So, how do you know you’re wasting significant time?  Begin by… Click here to continue reading

Three Factors of Time-Part 2 June 3, 2009

My last post contained an article written by Brian Tracy and at the end of it I asked if you have goals.  The second part of this article takes you through deciding upon your goals, how to achieve them and action steps you can take to keep the process moving.

The Three Factors of Time Cont. By Brian Tracy

Decide Upon Your Goals
What are your personal and family goals, both tangible and intangible? A tangible family goal could be a bigger house, a better car, a larger television set, a vacation, or anything else that costs money. An intangible goal would be to build a higher quality relationship with your spouse and children, to spend more time with your family going for walks or reading books. Achieving these family and personal goals are the real essence of time management, and its major purpose.

How to Achieve Your Goals
The second area of goals is your business and career goals. These are the “how” goals, the means by which you achieve your personal, “why” goals. How can you achieve the level of income that will enable you to fulfill your family goals? How can you develop the skills and abilities to stay ahead of the curve in your career? Business and career goals are absolutely essential, especially when balanced with family and personal goals.

Personal Development Goals
The third type of goals is your personal development goals. Remember, you can’t achieve much more on the outside than what you have achieved and become on the inside. Your outer life will be a reflection of your inner life. If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and your career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development. You must build yourself if you want to build your life. Perhaps the greatest secret of success is that you can become anything you really want to become to achieve any goal that you really want to achieve. But in order to do it, you must go to work on yourself and never stop.

Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.  First, develop the habit of stopping on a regular basis and thinking about what is really important to you. The more often you stop and think, the better decisions you will make.

Second, decide clearly upon your personal and family goals. Write them down. Discuss them with others. Be clear about why you are doing what you do.

Third, take some time to think about your career goals and the steps you will have to take to achieve them. Do something every day that moves you forward in all three areas.

Three Factors of Time June 1, 2009

I’ve see this article from Brian Tracy a few times and thought that I’d share it here. 

The Three Factors of  Time by Brian Tracy

Organize Your Life Around Your Family, Your Career and Your Personal Goals
You need to stand back on a regular basis and analyze yourself, your life and your time usage. You need to become a master of your time rather than a slave to continuing time pressures.

Your Most Precious Resource
Time is your most precious resource. It is the most valuable thing you have. It is perishable, it is irreplaceable, and it cannot be saved. It can only be reallocated from activities of lower value to activities of higher value. All work requires time. And time is absolutely essential for the important relationships in your life. The very act of taking a moment to think about your time before you spend it will begin to improve your personal time management immediately.

The Starting Point
Personal time management begins with you. It begins with your thinking through what is really important to you in life. And it only makes sense if you organize it around specific things that you want to accomplish. You need to set goals in three major areas of your life. First, you need family and personal goals. These are the real reasons why you get up in the morning, why you work hard and upgrade your skills, why you worry about money and sometimes feel frustrated by the demands on your time.

Have you set your goals yet?  Are you at the starting point?  If not, what’s stopping you?

Bring Order to Your Junk Drawer May 18, 2009

We all have junk drawers–in the kitchen, the office, the bedroom.  Whether  you have one or more, they accumulate a lot of things since they’re the catch-all for the things that don’t have a home.

It doesn’t have to stay that way.  You can bring order to your junk drawer.  To start the process, measure your drawer and purchase a drawer organizer with adjustable dividers.  Start by dumping the entire drawer out onto a surface with enough room for you to work and start sorting the items.  Decide what to keep and what you’re going to throw away.  Also create a pile of things that don’t belong in the drawer and put them away once you’re done.  If you can no longer use it, get rid of it.  Make a decision about everything in the drawer.

Once you’ve done that, insert the drawer organizer and adjust the dividers as needed to fit your items into the various sections, then start adding items to teh drawer, placing like items together.  Only put items that you actually use into the drawer and palce the items that you don’t  use so often toward the back of the drawer.

On a regualr basis, purge the drawer of things that you don’t use and if there is something that doesn’t belong in that drawer don’t put it in there!

Bringing Order To Your Closet May 13, 2009

If you live in Michigan like I do, or another state where the warmer weather has now arrived, you’re probably pulling out your spring and summer clothing and putting away the cold weather items.  When you do that, it’s also a good time to organize your closet.  Take a bit of time to look through what you have and remove the things that you no longer want and no longer wear (typically we wear 20% of the clothes that we have 80% of the time).  Put those items into a bag or box and give them away.

If you do this twice a year, for example now and then again when the cold weather returns, your closet will stay organized and free of items that you no longer wear or want.  Here’s another checklist that I like from Real Simple.  It will help you keep your closet organized.

• Install double rods. You don’t have to get out the power drill or call a handyman to add a second rod to a closet. Do it yourself.

• Add a valet hook. Install a hook for hanging dry cleaning before it goes into the closet or to plan outfits for parties.

• Toss wire hangers. If you want to prolong the life of your clothes, don’t keep them on wire hangers. Wood is better.

• Use baskets. Put all out-of-season purses in a basket at the top of your closet.

• Put jewelry in boxes. Label the boxes by category to rid the clutter from your dresser.

Garage Organizing Checklist May 11, 2009

Spring is here and it’s time to get in the garage.  The problem is that sometimes you can’t get into your garage because everything is in there.  Here’s an organizing check list that I like from Real Simple.

• Assess the clutter. Start by creating three categories: keep, donate, and toss. As you go through the items, assign each one to a category. If you rarely use a piece, it’s probably a good candidate for the donate or toss pile.

• Donate or toss. Contact local charities and arrange for a pickup of items to be donated; put the toss items out with the trash or recycling.

• Edit the keep pile. Sort the items you’re keeping into new categories, such as sporting equipment, power tools, etc. Assign each category a location: Sporting equipment, for example, might go in a wall cabinet or a bin in a corner; power tools might be hung on a system of hooks on a large piece of Peg-Board.

• Label items. Give anything that is not plainly identifiable a clear label. (Tuck a permanent marker and blue painter’s tape in a zippered plastic sandwich bag and have the kit handy for labeling anything and everything.)

• Choose the right shelving. Consider installing metal shelving. It’s affordable, easy to assemble, and able to withstand heat and humidity better than wood. Shelves will also keep your valuables safe from any dampness on the floor.

• Pick plastic storage boxes. Cardboard boxes, no matter how strong, bend and dent with frequent use and eventually succumb to dampness. Waterproof plastic containers protect their contents better, seal tighter, and are easy to carry or shift around on shelves (as long as they aren’t too big).

• Hang items to save space. Think about putting up pegs or hooks for such items as bicycles, cords, hoses, tools, strollers, and shovels. String up a hammock in the corner of the garage to hold roly-poly gear, like basketballs.

Are You Psyched Out By Clutter? May 7, 2009

Clutter can have a great impact on your life and can really fool you about what it actually does.  Take a look at what clutter can do to your life by clicking here.