Further to our earlier posting 20 Tips for Managing Time, Here are 20 more tips to help you be more effective in the way that you plan you day, week, month year.
TiMe Management is one of those topics that we can all find difficult to address at times. Am I perfect at managing my time or planning my day, no I’m not, but I do use the tools and tips below to help plan my day and manage my time more effectively. The key to changing most behaviour is awareness, so be aware of when you’re not effectively using your time, and then do something about it!
So to help you, pure and simple here is a list of 20 tips for managing time and setting yourself up for a productive day.
Enjoy!
- Respect others time – you may even get the same in return!
- Sort the urgent tasks from the un/important – do things in order of priority. When new things come in, re-prioritise or ask your boss for help to prioritise if they’re the one doing the requesting! Planning and prioritising are essentials of good time management
- Make sure you have variety in your day – mix things up a bit if you can, to avoid boredom
- Concentrate your efforts on those things on which your performance will be judged and measured
- Try to handle paperwork just once – take action and get rid of it!
- Make appointments with yourself in your diary so that you get thinking and planning time
- Break major tasks or projects down into manageable steps and work towards the whole goal. Congratulate yourself as you achieve steps along the way. You can’t eat an elephant in one sitting!
- Keep a time log for a week or so, you’ll be amazed where your time actually goes! Use the output to help you with your time planning
- Stand up when drop in visitors arrive and don’t sit down – this will keep them from taking root!
- Don’t hoard paperwork – if in doubt throw it out. Store on disk all that you can
- Make best use of emails – start to recognise when these save time over visits or phone calls. However, the work place is built on relationships and you really build relationships via email – make sure you get the balance right!
- Guard your time – be firm with drop-in visitors – tell them how few minutes you have for them and keep to it
- Clutter and heaps of paper makes you look and feel disorganised, where possible file it or bin it
- Find a ‘hideaway’ place not known to those who will distract you when you need to focus
- Do all you can to ensure that meetings run well – only attend those you really must – effective planning of meetings really pays off
- Use any travelling time to think – Radio off – brain on!
- Keep a Dictaphone or notebook in your car to capture thoughts and ideas
- Don’t confuse activity with productivity – I’ve had days where Ive been really busy(active) but not really got anything done! – ‘fail to prepare, and prepare to fail’
- Learn to say ‘No’ when you need to, whoever does the asking
- End your day with something that makes you feel good, maybe even do some planning for the next day – go home on a high note
TiME Management is one of many management skills programmes that we can help you with, either individually or for your company. To discuss how we might be able to help why not give us a call on 07702 110676 or email us at [email protected].
Martin Smith Learning and Development Ltd is a specialist consultancy working with leaders at all levels to improve their relationships with the people that they interact with both internally and externally to the company. We work with organisations, teams and individuals to identify how they can get the best from their people. We have experience spanning diverse industries and encompassing sectors such as engineering, design, customer service, finance, supply chain, sales and procurement.
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Phone; 07702110676, Email; [email protected] Web; www.martin-smith.biz