Don't Let Time Get Away From You
Elliott Roberts
Time is a precious commodity and if yours is getting away from you, you are in need of the self help practice known as time management. It is too easy for life's interruptions to get the best of you and make you a slave to everyone else's agenda.
Spending time wisely naturally plays a big role in the level of success a person can achieve. You can read all the self help literature you want but without some sort of plan for your day, your day will simply "happen" to you. You will not accomplish much and you will miss out on new opportunities because you will be in such a constant state of being behind, that you will be out of time for anything else.
Start out by planning your day ahead of time. The key is to schedule a routine time either first thing in the morning or sometime the night before, and stick with it. Make note of what needs to be done for that day. Set new goals and review those previously set.
Set times to start and finish your projects so that one task doesn't hijack your whole day. Divide big tasks into a series of smaller ones to be completed in increments.
Record tasks and set goals. When necessary, attach start and stop times so that you don't get stuck on one task while others go unattended. The timelines will also help you stay focused. Some tasks are bigger than others.
Planning may be key, but acceptance is important too, for even the best made plans can be thwarted by unexpected tasks. Realize that it is okay, deal with the situation and move on. It is so easy to put a small task aside to be completed later, not realizing the pile up you will soon be facing.
Otherwise they will pile up and leave you feeling stressed and overwhelmed. The other big time waster is the time spent starting a new project. There are some things we just do not want to do.
Either finish it at the moment or schedule a more appropriate time and forget about it until then. Unless deeply focused on one project, handle as many as you can of the small, unexpected tasks as they come, rather than putting them off until later. This will prevent them from piling up and leaving you feeling overwhelmed.
The Author, Elliott Roberts, is a writer at Becomng, a http://becomng.com/ Personal Development blog that deals with topics from health to web applications. Find additional http://becomng.com/topics/time-management/) Time Management posts over here.
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