Manage Your Time More Effectively to Accomplish More Each Day Benjamin Franklin was able to account for every minute in his day – he knew how to manage his time effectively, which is a common trait among successful people. That’s one of the key reasons why successful people are able to accomplish so much during their lifetime. You do not have to manage your time as closely as Benjamin Franklin did to be able to accomplish more in each day. There are a few things that you can do to streamline the time management process. Analyze how you spend your time: For a month, track your time to identify where you are wasting time. Eighty percent of your accomplishments come from 20 percent of your efforts. Determine which 20 percent of your efforts are required to generate 80 percent of your results. Time management tools such as Workflowy, RescueTime and Wedoist can assist you in managing your time more effectively. Have three to-do lists: In Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success with Less Stress, Robert Bly recommends that each of us have a Daily to-do, Projects to-do and Long-term to-do to ensure that all the tasks that important to us in both our personal and professional lives get done. Daily to-do: These consist of the tasks that you have to perform each day. Projects to-do: These are projects that you are currently working on, with their attached deadlines. Review this list weekly so that the daily to-do list covers them at the appropriate times. Long-term to-do: These are important but not urgent projects that you would like to do at some point but have no definite end date. This could be learning a new language or acquiring a new skill to position yourself for a promotion. Dedicate a few hours each week to work on these projects. Prepare your daily to-do list the night before prioritize tasks. Prioritize the truly important tasks over the ‘seemingly’ urgent ones. Respond to communication at a certain time: Listen to and respond to voice and email messages at a specific time each day. Schedule social media activities: Use tools such as HootSuite, SocialOomph, or TweetDeck to schedule social media status updates. In addition, use Scoop.it and Prismatic to find, curate, and share meaningful articles. Use Evernote to organize important documents: A big time waster is searching for documents. Use Evernote and the Evernote Clipper to organize important project documents. While surfing the Internet, when you find an article that relates to the work you do, clip and save it in an Evernote notebook for easy reference. Evaluate your accomplishments: At the end of each day, evaluate how each day went so that you can course correct. At the end of the week and the year, evaluate your accomplishments for the week and years to determine if you have accomplished your goals. If you are searching for a new job, the tips outlined will still work for you. Identify which 20 percent of your job search efforts will achieve 80 percent of your goals. That could simply mean allocating the correct amount of time to tap into the hidden job market. Identify the skills that will make you a more attractive employee and dedicate time each day to acquire those skills. The most successful people in life attribute their success to having systems in place, be like them, and introduce a time management system that’s right for you.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 03:07:39 +0000
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