Planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities

A Brief Guide to Time Management

Time management is the process of planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities. Good time management enables an individual to complete more in a shorter period of time, lowers stress, and leads to career success.

Many of us are prey to time-wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time bandits? Do you spend too much time Internet surfing, reading email, Facebook posting, texting, or making personal calls? 

This can be made in either the first block of your workday or the last few minutes. Use either of those chunks of time to create a daily to-do list. When you’re creating your to-do list, make sure to keep it simple. Seeing a half-done lists day after day can be disheartening. It’s better to under promise and overdeliver, even when it comes to personal productivity. 

For most people, the first few hours of work are the most productive. Oddly enough, you can focus more easily when your brain isn’t fully awake. Booting-up brains have less excess energy for daydreaming and worrying about other tasks. Use this to your advantage and take on your most mentally demanding tasks first thing after waking up.

Are you wasting a lot of time looking for files on your computer? Take the time to organize a file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down? Redo it, so it’s organized to the point that you can quickly lay your hands on what you need. 

It is important to remove excess activities or tasks. Determine what is significant and what deserves your time. Removing non-essential tasks/activities frees up more of your time to be spent on genuinely important things.

And here’s the most important time management tip of all. You can be in control and accomplish what you want to accomplish — once you’ve come to grips with the time management myth and taken control of your time.