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Everyone has things that they want to get done.  It is a constant gripe that they do not have enough time to do it.  Through these simple steps you will be able to get through your daily tasks with time to spare to focus on the bigger picture.

I have been away without Internet for some days, but this was not necessarily as bad as it may seem.  I have now had more time to think about things (as opposed to browsing) and will be sharing my insights over the next few days.

One of the critical things in managing my blogging, university studies and work is to ensure that I am able to give my full attention to each.  At the same time I need to do so without: going crazy; becoming an insomniac and missing fun.  The key to do this is not necessarily working harder but working smarter.  I have had discussions with many people on this, that you can work hard, but not efficiently - meaning that your hard work although respected is not the best thing you can do in the circumstances, causing yourself strife and not meeting all your targets.

Based on personal circumstances and reading different texts and sites on the subject, I crystallized these ideas into a list that will let you increase your productivity without losing your sense of fun and adventure.  Much of what is written concerns goals and objectives.  I have structured the list in this way because at the end of the day this is the only way you will be able to measure your success.  The goals do not have to be big, they do not need to be extravagant, but without knowing what you are doing and what you want to get done - all the time management tips in the world will not be able to give you a framework to measure your success and therefore to be successful.

Success may come in the form of having more time to spend with your family, it may come about through being able to stop taking work home with you, or it may result in giving you financial freedom.  Attaining these goals may be possible without time management but recognizing that your time is valuable and understanding how to use it to your best advantage will increase your chances of doing what you want to do on your terms.

1. Work Out What your Goals Are

Without knowing what you want to achieve you will not know when you have done it.  If you skip this step prioritizing where you want to spend your time very difficult.

You can work out what you want to do by making a list of the different areas of your life.  If you write as general categories what you are currently doing in each of those areas.  From this list you can drill down and determine what you want to be doing in six weeks, six months and six years time.  You may also want to consider what aspects you currently do not have time for that you want to be doing.  From this you can set your goals, which may help you to manage your time more effectively.

2. Analyze your Goals

Some problems with time management result because people do not know where to start, and do not know how to stay on track.  If you have had this experience looking at your goals and working out exactly what they require will put them on a fast track.

Take each of your goals, look at them and consider what you need to do to achieve them.  This list may still be quite general, keep on looking at each of the elements and consider what needs to be done in what order to finish them.  Write a small note against each explaining what needs to be done and when to get it done.

3. Track your Goals

Everything that you have decided you want to do should now be clear to you.  The steps you need to take to fulfil these have also been worked out.  Now you need to consolidate these with reality.  Harness the power of a computerized calendar (such as Sunbird or outlook) and a large wall calendar.  Write down all your pre-existing commitments, including meetings, appointments, due dates, work hours and holidays.  Then look at your list of goals, create deliverable dates against each component task and add them to your calendar.

You will now know what you want to do, how you are going to do it and and when you are going to do it by.  Make your timings practical as you can always revise if you finish things early.  Daily review your calendar.  Ensure that you know what you are going to do and commit to it.  Try not to extend your timeframes too regularly as this may lose your focus to attaining your goals.

4. Keep Track of What you Are Doing

Now you have a calendar, and you know what you should be doing, how you are going to do it and when you are going to have it done by - it sounds easy to get the most out of your time - or does it? Although people have great intentions, these are often foreshadowed by unexpected events, things taking longer than they were supposed to and doing things that could be done more efficiently.  One great way to know what is giving you problems is to write down what you are actually doing.

It feels hard at first, but getting into the habit of writing down what you have done with your day is one of the most productive things that you can do.  I start with a piece of lined paper, I write down each hour and half hour on it for the day - starting when I begin working. Each line needs to have a comment on it, concerning what I was working on / achieved, during this period.  Even if it feels minimal, if you can just write in that one line  what you were doing, soon you will have a complete picture of what you actually do.  This may be shocking - I originally saw a lot of “surfing”, “browsing”, “nothing….” - but can be fixed easily. Do not fall into the trap of changing what you record, change what you are doing.

Collect your records about what you have done and review them periodically.  You may want to add the time that was spent on various tasks, or you may want to simply look for patterns. Find reoccurring things that are not productive and devise a plan on how to solve these issues.  This then needs to be reintegrated with your goals, analysis and tracking of those goals.  Examples of these reoccurring time saps may be where you spend long periods fixing the same problem, waiting for something, reading too many feeds or similar.  Analyzing what they are and why they are inefficient, consider the most efficient use of your time and then strive for it. 

5. Remove your Distractions

Now you should be well on the way of achieving what you want to, on your terms.  There are things however that may be getting in your way.  Distractions can cause you to loose concentration, stop working on a task or make you forget your priorities.  They may not be immediately obvious that they are taking your time, but the result of them may be enormous.

What distracts you will depend on your learning style, workplace, personality or physical environment.  They may effect you differently than they do the next person.

There is a story that occurs often in time-management literature about a study of programmers that found that one particular team was able to constantly produce excellent code when they were in the “zone”. This zone came about when they had been focusing on a problem for seventeen minutes.  The problem was that every eleven minutes the programmers were distracted by either other people, phone calls or emails.  What is preventing you from getting into the zone?

I have listed below some common distractions and the ways that some people choose to remove them.

• Too Much Time Spent on Emails; One solution may be to automatically respond to emails from most recipients mentioning that you will attend to their email within 24 hours, mentioning that if anything is urgent to email you and follow it up with a phone call.
• Distracted by receiving emails; You may wish to only look at emails twice daily.  You could schedule a specific length of time, and everything that is not finished by that time needs to wait to the next email period.  This will teach you how to deal with your time better, and will stop you constantly switching your focus to less important tasks.
• Distracted by Instant Messenger; Use the busy functionality well, meaning when you do not want to be distracted then change your status. When people know that you are “busy” and do not respond to any messages - instead having an automatic message to ask them to call you if it is urgent you will loose much of this distraction.
• Spending too long on the phone: Depending on who you are dealing with, it may be a good idea to ask people to write down their problem and email it to you, and then you will call them back.  This means that you can allocate time to make these calls, but much of the uncertainty and wasted time on the phone will be avoided, as people often ring first and then consider their problem later.  If you ask them to be more detailed then often they will solve it for themselves.

6. Be Flexible

Although your goals are important, they may not necessarily be able to be accomplished when you want to, or other things may come up.  Do not rigidly adhere to your plan, recognize your plans importance and try to stick to it but if this does not prove possible then do not panic.  Respond to the situation - readjust your calendar and move on.  Note why you had to change, and review these reasons often.  The only problem with being flexible is that it may make you always push things off to a later date.  Acknowledge that this is what you are doing and develop a strategy to ensure that you can be flexible and still meet your goals.  This may mean that you have not planned well enough about how much time something will take, recognize your time allocation weakness and try to incorporate them next time you are reviewing your calendar.

7. Make the Most of The World Around You

Note that you do not have to do everything by yourself.  Making the most of your time may mean making the most of the time of others around you.  If you do not know how to do something, try not to “google it” and self-educate, ask someone that you know will know the answer, or at least where to look.  This social interaction is a great personal thing, but also means that you can do things faster.  Look at where you are spending your time, if you are taking a long time to do something that someone else could do for you - then ask them.  Recognize your limitations and identify the strengths of others around you. Asking for help can be difficult but if it means the difference between success and failure, be sure to choose the route that will increase your success.

Re-inventing the wheel may be something personally enlightening but if it does not help you reach your goals then it may not be the best use of your time. Consider looking at what you are doing through someone else’s eyes and ask how you would do things differently given the chance to ask for help.

8. Re-Evaluate what you are doing

Once you have your goals organized, do not forget them.  The point of this exercise is that you are able to meet your goals when you want to meet them.  Additionally do not become so focused on your initial goals that you do not end up doing things that are no longer important and omitting things that you now want to do.  Periodically look at your list of goals, and your calendar and ask - is this what I really want to be doing? Repeat the process in step1 and compare your current goals with what you had decided previously.  People change and so do what they want to do. Re-Align what you are trying to achieve with your tasks and calendar, this way you will always be using your time effectively.

The first time you review you may find that your list is very different to what you originally thought it would be.  This may be because now you realize that you can do so much more than you originally thought you could, you may also realize the possibilities of your own ambition, or that you are clearer about where you want to be going; that your original list is not going to take you there.  Do not be disheartened, learn, adjust and then continue.  Hopefully the next time you review your list, you will only be adding  more goals, to replace those that you have already accomplished.

9. Recognize your success

Attaining what you want to achieve when you want to achieve it is not necessarily easy.  Using your newfound time management prowess you will have achieved more in a faster timeframe than you ever had done before.  Do not take this for granted, have a coffee, pat yourself on the back, take yourself out to dinner, or do something that makes you feel good.  Not feeling satisfied for a job well done will probably result in apathy for what you are trying to achieve. You do not want to go back to your old inefficient ways and then lamenting what you have not done - feel happy about what you are doing, where you are going and what you have done.

 

If you have any stories about how to increase your time management, how to remove distractions or would like clarification about how to maximize the productivity of your time, do not hesitate to comment below.

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