Please make a list of what it is that you do each day. Write down everything. When you get up in the morning, what do you do? When you get ready for work, what does that consist of? What do you do all day? What does your bedtime regime consist of?
As you look through the list, think of ways that you could be more efficient with what you do.
Analyze what it is that you could stop doing or give up.
The following Time Management Tips may help!
Could you start taking the train or bus to work? Freeing yourself some time for catching up on work-related reading, computer work or just unwinding with that book you never have time to finish.
If you must drive to work could you program the people you need to call into your phone and call them on route (with a headset or hands free)?
You can download audio books onto your MP3 or burn them on CD’s. You can also get audio books at the library or bookstore. There are all kinds of them, from learning a new language to listening to an inspirational or motivational story!
If you have a secretary or assistant you can ask them to update you or share ideas with you on a recording device so that you can listen to them while driving and make voice memos back to them. You can also use the quiet time in the car to record your own ideas and strategies. This method has saved me a lot of time. I trained my assistant to only interrupt me with information that couldn't wait. The rest of the information she would summarize on tape for me and I would listen to it on the way home. While listening I would record my feedback for her on another recording device and in the morning she would listen to it and have the information she needed for that day!
In my business it is important to constantly read and learn new things so I always try and bring a book or something I can learn from with me when I am waiting in line at the bank or the doctors office etc…
For your next computer get a dual-core processor so you don’t have to wait while you are doing a virus scan or downloading something. You can multi-task. I find this feature very helpful.
With the invention of Voicemail very few people actually answer their business phones anymore therefore making it very difficult to connect with someone. So most of us tend to play a lot of telephone tag. It is a waste of time and can get frustrating for both parties. Instead, set up a specific time that the two of you can speak. Although, it may not work out in every instance, it has saved me an enormous amount of time.
When you are talking on the phone whether it is personal or business are you using a hands free headset? This way you can do other things at the same time. Like input information into your computer that the client is sharing with you. Or at home you can talk to a friend while making dinner or cleaning up.
Almost every business professional I deal with complains about the amount of emails they receive on a daily basis. Make sure you put a Spam filter on your email. You can also get a Spam feature that sends an automatic reply to emails sent from people who are not in your contact list. They are asked politely to fill out some more information and if it isn’t that important most people will not reply.
Secondly, if you find that you are replying to multiple emails with the same type of information, create a standard reply that you can customize if needed.
Thirdly, educate people who send you emails, what is important to you and what you don't need to be copied on.
Fourthly, do your best to prioritize them.
Making mistakes can take up a lot of unnecessary time. When it is important to proofread a document or take instructions, stop what you are doing, clear your head and focus specifically on that task.
Many people say they don’t have the opportunity to exercise. If you play golf, make sure you walk the course! Walk to work if possible. Ride your bike to work if possible. Always take the stairs. Incorporate your exercise into your family routine, do sports together, take classes together. Push the stroller with roller blades on, walk the dog at a quick pace!
Put less into your day. Learn to say NO!
If you are a parent and you find that you are racing with your children from one class to the next; stop and analyze whether it is really necessary for your children to be enrolled in so many things. Children need downtime and time for creative and unstructured play.
Do you watch too much television? If so turn it off and you will have lots more time to do what you want.
Can you afford a Cleaning person?
Can you get a live-in Nanny who takes care of your house, does all the cooking and is there to baby sit your children or take care of elderly parents? It is far less expensive than you would think. It can actually cost more not to have one when you consider the price of daycare, driving to daycare, hiring babysitters and cleaning persons. Also, there is the cost to consider of your personal well-being. When you are haggard and run down it will eventually catch up with you and create more of a burden, so be proactive!
Can you afford to hire a gardener or a student to cut your lawn?
Learn how to unbutton your pants on the way to the bathroom?
Read magazines or work-related information while at a red light?
Learn how to dial the phone or text without looking so you can talk to your friends or colleagues at the same time?
Okay so the last three are a joke! But the sad truth is that I used to do these things and more! If you don’t see the problem with this then you have a problem!
If you take efficiency to the extreme like I did then you can become rigid and irritable when things don’t go as planned. Things won’t always work out to fit into your nicely laid out schedule. Just as you are running out the door, your child will get sick or you spill your coffee on your clothes and have to change. Then you find that your car has a flat and so on.
You don’t want to lose your spontaneity and light-heartedness and allow these or any other Time Management Tips to become your ruler.
Don’t try to fill every last minute with something that you deem is useful.
Make sure you put aside at least a half a day per week where you don’t have anything scheduled. You don’t wear a watch; you don’t look at a clock and maybe you just stay in your pajamas. Also, make sure that there are pockets of time in your day, everyday, where you can sit quietly and just relax with no distractions.
Now for the most important of all Time Management Tips!
All of these ideas are beneficial but if you really want to maximize the advantages of these Time Management Tips, you need to change your definition of Time Management. To change this you need to shift from being time-centric to being timeless. When you achieve this time is no longer something you never have enough of or something that you need to manage!
Our Life and Business Coaching Programs can teach you how to make this transition. Please Contact Us for more details.
Time Management Tips that really work! - To learn more about this author, visit Karen Parsons's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
Dr. John Oda
John Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website |
|
Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an Executive Leadership Coach and Team Building Consultant and creator of the TIGERS team development model. For the past twenty years she has helped leaders and teams achieve goals with high levels of collaboration and teamwork.
Crampton is a published author. Her contribution to Working Together: Diversity As Opportunity was endorsed by Stephen Covey. She has written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
The TIGERS model passed two rigorous validation studies in 1992 and 1994. The TIGERS Survey is able to measure and track team development over time.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps groups identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings.
For more information, or to subscribe to TigerTracks, a free monthly leadership and team newsletter go to http://www.corevalues.com - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|
Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development.
Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit.
He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine.
He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball.
He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
|
George Ludwig
George Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance.
Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson.
His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more.
George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
|
Vwodek Wojczynski
Business Coach and Consultant Vwodek Wojczynski (pronounced Voy-chin-ski) brings fun, awareness, accountability and fresh perspectives based on his diverse experiences in life and business.
Born in Poland and educated in Greece and Canada, he is trilingual with 8 years experience in business development with clients in Canada, USA, Switzerland and Poland.
His approach is systematic and process-driven. He fuses the know-how of proven business methods with his commitment that entrepreneurs experience satisfaction and joy based on their values, motivations and strengths. He believes that businesses succeed based on their ability to generate value by providing what’s needed and wanted.
Ultimately, he trains executives and true business owners - people who work less, produce more, own businesses that run automatically after a while and make a difference globally.
His current research focus is the development of intelligent business systems and the application of emerging artificial intelligence technologies in business.
He is also an avid traveler, spoken word performer and visual artist. He resides in Toronto, Canada. - Visit Vwodek Wojczynski's Website |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
|
Karen Parsons
(Visit Karen's Website)
Hello my name is Karen Parsons and I am
President and Founder of Successful
Solutions Life Coaching.
We are providers of Personal and Business
Transformation solutions; we teach our
Clients how to awaken to their Infinite
Potential for Greatness in Life and
Business!
Successful Solutions Life Coaching was
formed because of a deep concern I have.
Stress, unhappiness and lack of meaning in
the workplace has become an epidemic!
Organizations are paying a very high price
for this epidemic!
Statistics Canada tells us that
work-related stress directly affects
current and long-term productivity of
workers in terms of reduced work
activities, disability days, absenteeism
and turnover!
It is estimated that the replacement cost
of an entry-level employee is 30% of their
annual salary up to 400% of the annual
salary for a high-level employee!
Progressive companies know that providing
their employees with solutions for
reducing stress and finding meaning in
their work is no longer just a luxurious
option, but a necessity if they want to
improve Productivity and increase Employee
Retention!
Please visit our Website! www.successfulsolutionslifecoaching.
com
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
