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Manage your time, balance your life!

Written by: Joe Dager

Article Overview: Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill.

Manage your time, balance your life!

Time management is basically about being focused. The Pareto Principle also known as the '80:20 Rule' states that 80% of efforts that are not time managed or unfocused generates only 20% of the desired output. However, 80% of the desired output can be generated using only 20% of a well time managed effort. Although the ratio '80:20' is only arbitrary, it is used to put emphasis on how much is lost or how much can be gained with time management. I am a big advocate of David Allen’s Getting Things Done Philosophy.

Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

But there is more skills involved in time management than the core basics. Skills such as decision making, inherent abilities such as emotional intelligence and critical thinking are also essential to your personal growth.

Personal time management involves everything you do. No matter how big and no matter how small, everything counts. Each new knowledge you acquire, each new advice you consider, each new skill you develop should be taken into consideration. If you want to be successful in business, you must manage your time and have a balanced life-style. This is the key result in having personal time management. This is the main aspect that many practitioners of personal time management fail to grasp. Time management is about getting results, not about being busy. The six areas that personal time management seeks to improve in anyone's life are physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual.

1. The physical aspect involves having a healthy body, less stress and fatigue.
2. The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental growth activities.
3. The social aspect involves developing personal or intimate relations and being an active contributor to society.
4. The career aspect involves school and work.
5. The emotional aspect involves appropriate feelings and desires and manifesting them.
6. The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly planning and having a set of things to do list for each of the key areas may not be very practical, but determining which area in your life is not being giving enough attention is part of time management. Each area creates the whole you, if you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

1. Personal time management should not be so daunting a task. It is a very sensible and reasonable approach in solving problems big or small.
2. A great way of learning time management and improving your personal life is to follow several basic activities.
3. One of them is to review your goals whether it be immediate or long-term goals often.
4. A way to do this is to keep a list that is always accessible to you.
5. Always determine which task is necessary or not necessary in achieving your goals and which activities are helping you maintain a balanced life style.
   
   Each and everyone of us has a peek time and a time when we slow down, these are our natural cycles. We should be able to tell when to do the difficult tasks when we are the sharpest.
6. Learning to say "No". You actually see this advice often. Heed it even if it involves saying the word to family or friends.
7. Pat yourself at the back or just reward yourself in any manner for an effective time management result.
8. Try and get the cooperation from people around you who are actually benefiting from your efforts of time management.
9. Don't procrastinate. Attend to necessary things immediately.
10. Have a positive attitude and set yourself up for success. But be realistic in your approach in achieving your goals.
11. Have a record or journal of all your activities. This will help you get things in their proper perspective.

These are the few steps you initially take in becoming a well rounded individual. As the say personal time management is the art and science of building a better life. From the moment you integrate into your life time management skills, you have opened several options that can provide a broad spectrum of solutions to your personal growth. It also creates more doors for opportunities to knock on.

Related Articles
  Lessins Lessons for Life Balance
  Work-Life Quality and Balance
  How to handle stress in your side business
  The Myth of Balance
  Balancing Your Day

Article Tags: core basics, goal settings, personal time management, time balance, time management skill



Related Forum Posts
Re: Getting *back* to the next step - Take time out to enjoy life, family, friends before you get back to the 'next step'. I know a lot of people can lose focus on the task at hand by taking a break, but balance is key. Balance is integral to maintaining overall success in business and life!
How do you balance your life? - How do you balance your life when you're an entrepreneur who also has a full-time job during the day? When do you have time to relax or have fun? Or spend time with family and friends? And more importantly, where do you get the energy to handle so many things? Thanks
Morning Routine - Wow! I need to wake up earlier! I wonder if of these executives have a good work / life balance if they're spending so much time working. How did you get access to such high profile people IWDCanada?
Re: Great video on work-life balance - Hi Evan, Thanks for the video link on Work-life balance, I found Nigel’s presentation very enjoyable and his style kept your interest all the way thru. I must admit I saw a lot of myself in what’s wrong today and the only thing that was a bit unrealistic is when he said he took a year off work to discover more about family life. Other than that it was a great video and very thought provoking. There are some very basic things we can all do to look at life differently and value the right things before we are too old to make it happen. I suppose that is why so many of us want to work from home. regards, Mal.
Finding balance as a mother entrepreneur - Thanks Leo - I think it's even harder to find that life balance as a mother entrepreneur - any advice from the forum members?


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