Time and Tide Waits For No One

The adage of "Time and Tide waits for No Man" is still very applicable in today's world. It is even more so with the advance of technology that keeps everyone on their toes. It is no longer acceptable to ponder before replying your email. Everyone seems to expect the reply the moment it is read by the recipient.

Imagine you get up early, drag yourself to the office, look at the email, talk on the telephone, shuffle papers from one pile to another, and you don't accomplish much. There are constant interruptions by people who walk into your office without appointment. You get to attend the unimportant meetings that are long and unproductive. You are always constantly being bombarded with faxes, emails, and letters. When you finally thought that you can settle down to do some serious work, you get call to put out someone else's fire. Important things are being pushed aside to those that are urgent. At the end of the day, having sped through one crisis to another, you are really to go home but totally exhausted.

Does these sounds familiar? Maybe not every day but it does happen on some days. Time management is a key skill for success at both work and home. Being able to master and apply it will help to improve your efficiency and well-being. Failing to do you could end up over-stretched and over-stressed.

From identifying priorities to organizing systems, from handling interruptions to managing others, these tips will help you master the powerful and empowering skill in time management

Planning is the key element in time and workload management. Apply the 80/20 rule to prioritize your tasks. Planning helps you to anticipate potential issues and stay on course. Be more sensitive to time and focus on important activities. It allows you to gather the needed information and identify resources and support. Good organizational skills are based on two things: effectiveness and efficiency. It is simply doing the right thing in the right way. More sophisticated way of setting priority would be to review the impact of the problem, the urgency of the problem and the severity of the problem if it is kept that way. Alternatively you can make use of the ABC system where A means important and urgent, B means urgent but not important and C means important things that are not urgent and can wait.

Procrastination is the greatest killer of productivity. Avoid the deadly deadlines as much as possible. Once you have the time use it. Are you the type who would wait until the last minute to start something? Or do you put off making a decision about something? And, wait looking behind you there may be a big pile of things waiting for you to do. There is no magic formula to deal with procrastination; however you could develop some positive habits and attitudes that will help you to manage and control it.

Americans waste nine million hours per day looking for misplaced items, according to the American Demographics Society. The Wall Street Journal reported that the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year (an hour a day) searching for missing information in messy desks and files.
Desktop management should be on your priority list in time management. Imagine a cluttered and untidy desk and the amount of time you need to find the items lying there. Never use your desk top as a coffee table, a filing point, a storage area and as a seat. Have a stack-tray which allows you to put your documents as IN, OUT and KIV.

When designing your new arrangement, keep in mind these few pointers:
•You can comfortably allow for three to five activity centers in one room.

•Place storage within an arm's reach of the activity.

•Keep space around windows, doors, and air vents clear.

•Office and desk areas are laid out to best advantage in L or U shape patterns.

•Lighting and outlet locations are relatively easy problems to overcome.

Housekeeping begins with categorizing the items into FILE, ARCHIVE & THROW - FAT approach. Now get on with it.

The office people could probably be the biggest time wasters for you. How could you control or influence them?

•Don't use interruptions as an excuse to avoid work

•Don't prolong a conversation

•Learn to say "No"

•Use negative body language to fend off intrusions

•Focus on your priorities - don't lose sight over them

To get off to a good start for the day, maximize your golden hour. You could do the following:

•Scan email subject lines, but delay responding to all but the most urgent until after 1030 am

•Use email rules to color code incoming messages to help you distinguish the truly urgent from the normal ones

•Schedule your most important meetings for 0830 am sharp in a meeting room with plenty of neutral light or

•Reserve the first 90 minutes of the day to work on your most important task: deflect other interruptions until later

•Use this time to schedule meetings with customers

•Use this time to schedule staff training sessions

•Change your voice-mail greeting to inform callers that you will get back to them promptly (later) this morning, and then let calls go to voice-mail

Everyone has the same amount time each day and success goes to those who can control and make effective use of their time. So, let's start controlling time.

Keen H is the owner of www.learnselfhelp.com [http://www.learnselfhelp.com]. For further recommended resources on how to improve yourself that is Guaranteed to jumpstart your Personal Success Click here [http://www.learnselfhelp.com] to grab your self improvement newsletter.