Three Tips to Eliminate Wasted Time
What
is one of the least-mastered but most-desired skills in our fast-paced modern
world? If you answered time management, you would be correct. It is absolutely
critical component to becoming successful and living your most fabulous life
ever! Here are 3 simple tips to increase your productivity and DOUBLE your time
management ability: First, eliminate time wasters in your life.
You know what these are but just in case, time wasters are things that
interrupt you and you spend time doing, but you wouldn’t have chosen to do them
given the choice. Mindless web surfing, playing Facebook games, perusing gossip
blogs (ok maybe only I am guilty of that one!)
are all examples of time wasters.
Here some other examples that must be if not eliminated then controlled:
·
Email---If you
are spending more than 30 minutes per day on email (unless that is your
business) you are spending too much! Even if it is your business, set specific
time blocks to deal with emails. Work on nothing but email during those blocks.
This will not only eliminating time wasting but also make you much more
productive.
·
Telephone---If
you answer the phone live more than 5 times per day during your productive time
(work, work at home, etc.) you are sacrificing time management and efficiency. When you answer the phone, you interrupt your
current productive flow and this kills your productivity. Do the same thing
with your phone as you did with email, unless you are a doctor or technical
support agent whose phone calls are critical.
·
Television---This
must be limited for you to achieve ultimate control over your time. My recommendation is 30 minutes per day,
especially if you are not getting all the things done you need or want to.
Another
essential part to successful time management is to make a list of what is
genuinely important in your life and just start doing those things. on your
list. One of the keys to time management
is prioritization---you absolutely must know what you want to accomplish and then
go do it. Today’s world has too many
distractions and when you allow those distractions to become priority, you
sacrifice time management. Follow these
steps:
·
Make of list of
what you want to accomplish
·
Set time frames
for accomplishing each item
·
Organize each
item in order of importance
·
Create a game
plan for achieving each of your goals in its respective time frame
Most
importantly, begin to focus on positively managing your time throughout the
course of the day. As you consistently
focus eliminating time wasters and being productive, you will notice more ways
that are better for you specifically. Once you have determined your goals and
your priorities, start focusing on simply getting those things done. If something isn’t on your goals list for this
week—don’t do it until all your goals are done.
When you prioritize every interruption that occurs and put your goals
last, you will not accomplish your goals.
Instead, you will be a slave (as you probably are now) to interruptions
and probably feel like you never accomplish enough.