Time is a precious, nonrenewable resource. That”s why you should value every moment, hour and day that you have. And just as a well-run business should carefully develop a strategy for spending money, an effective business person should carefully develop a plan for spending time.
To help you use your time as effectively as possible, here are some time management strategies you can implement to enhance your efficiency and productivity:
Develop A Time Strategy
The first step in effective time management is not to develop a schedule, but instead to develop a time strategy. The time strategy should be based on a short list of time priorities.
Start by identifying the No. 1 way you can most increase profits by use of your time. Then move onto the No 2 way, the No. 3 way, etc. This short list of time priorities forms the foundation for your time planning for every week of the year.
Next, you should focus your efforts. Focus is crucial for effective time management. And the fewer priorities you focus on at once, the more productive you will be.
Once you”ve established your major time priorities for the year, you should allocate them by week or by month. Like it or not, a lot of our time each week is going to be eaten up by nonstrategic items that we have no control over.
Therefore, it is important to limit the number of strategic time goals we have for each week. So even if you have 10 strategic time goals for the year, you may want to focus on no more than one or two of them in any given week.
Set Aside Uninterrupted Time
Every week you should make up a detailed time plan, which you modify each day as needed. Except in times of crisis, try to make sure day-to-day issues don”t push your strategic time priorities off your schedule.
Generally, your major strategic time priorities will involve activities like planning, thinking, and developing ideas. More so than day-to-day issues, these activities require big blocks of uninterrupted time.
Constant interruptions can kill any hope of effective time management. One way to avoid them is to make it clear that when your door is closed you are not to be disturbed. Another is to have regular meetings, such as every week, with the people that you interact with the most and insist on saving non-pressing issues for these meetings.
Avoid Time Traps
To get the most from your time, be careful to avoid these common time traps:
* Spending more time in the offices where the most congenial people are, as opposed to where the most important issues are.
* Wasting too much time getting daily updates on routine activities, instead of waiting for a more meaningful weekly summary.
* Jumping too eagerly into the routine, more straightforward work and putting off the more complex and difficult work.
* Not starting the most important work first thing in the morning.
* Failing to make up a schedule for each day.
* Scheduling each day so tightly that it is impossible to stay on track.
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