Too Busy to Read this Article?

'Feeling snowed under.' 'Always busy, but seemingly getting nothing done.' 'Constantly battling a backlog of emails and phone calls.' If any of these statements sound familiar, then perhaps it's time you examined your time management skills?

Poor time management increases stress levels, negatively impacts your self-confidence and puts more pressure on those around you. Freeing yourself of time pressures enables you to work and indeed live, with a greater sense of control and proactivity. No one has enough time, and yet everyone has all there is. Everyone including Michael O'Leary and Bill Cullen has exactly 168 hours per week. Time is not the issue; the issue is ensuring that daily urgencies do not prevent you from spending time focusing on what you determine is important.

So what does enhancing time management skills involve?

1. Changing habits

Firstly, it means changing habits. 80% of what we do each day is based on habits, so if you want something different, you will need to alter some habits and do something different. But changing habits will create resistance - internal resistance and resistance from others who unconsciously don't want you to change.

2. Enhance time management

Secondly, enhancing time management means learning how to say 'no' to people in an appropriate way, remembering that as you say 'no' to other people's urgencies you are really saying 'yes' to your own priorities.

3.Work on your time management skills

Lastly, you have to make time to work on your time management skills. Time management requires discipline. What is greater? The temporary discomfort of discipline or the pain of regret when another week, month, year of even lifetime goes by and you still have not achieved what you are capable of achieving?

At the heart of effective time management is clearly knowing your priorities. The trick is to schedule your priorities, not prioritise your schedule. What are your priorities? A useful way to approach this issue is to answer the question 'if you (or your business) is to be successful long-term, what are the 4 or 5 key activities that you need to focus on?' Examples might include: customer service, staff training and marketing. If you know the key areas that you should be spending time on, you then have a benchmark against which you can assess how you are currently utilising your time.

To be proactive you need to block off periods of time and set boundaries for the most important things in your business and personal life. Starting a new advertising campaign won't happen unless you plan for it. Getting fit won't happen until you devote regular time to exercising. Spending more time with loved ones won't happen unless you schedule more time to spend with loved ones.

Time management is not a once-off exercise; it is a continuing determination to improve the way you use your most precious resource. There will always be crises and events to respond to as well as the daily 'must do's' but unless you make the time to determine your priorities, the daily urgencies will always take precedence. Either you run your day or your day runs you. Either you control your time or it controls you.

Effectively managing your priorities creates freedom. Freedom creates opportunities to make decisions and over time our decisions make us.

Want to use this article on your own website or e-zine Find out how »