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Time Management
Controlling Your Time

Balancing your time each day can be difficult. Trying to manage your time between work and other activities takes good planning. One article explains four things to remember when it comes to time management, prioritize your time, narrow your focus, set aside uninterrupted time, and avoid time traps (“Control”).

Prioritizing your time has to do with developing a time strategy based on a short list of time priorities (“Control”). Your priority list should start with the most beneficial priority. Brainstorm ideas and putting them in order of priority will help you organize your tasks and give you direction.

Once you list and prioritize your tasks it is best to evaluate your list and narrow your focus. You can be more productive if you focus on fewer priorities at once (“Control”). Do not try to do too much in one day. Give yourself time to complete your task each day. Determine what would be a productive amount of tasks to tackle each week. Do not go overboard.

Once you have narrowed your focus and laid out your schedule for each week, it is time to set aside some uninterrupted time. A detailed time plan should be made up each week. “Except in times of crisis, try to make sure day-to-day issues don’t push your strategic time priorities off your schedule” (“Control”). When you schedule time to work a particle task make sure that the time you set aside is dedicated totally to that task. Interruptions can slow your progress and cause you to fall behind schedule. You are going to have bumps in the road, but try to stay on schedule.

While setting aside uninterrupted time to handle your tasks, you also have to avoid time traps. Some examples of time traps include:

  1. Spending a disproportionately high amount of time in the offices where the most congenial people are, as opposed to where the most important issues are.
  2. Wasting too much time getting daily updates on routine activities as opposed to waiting for a more meaningful weekly summary.
  3. Jumping too eagerly into the routine, more straightforward work and putting off the more complex and difficult work.
  4. Not starting the more important work first thing in the morning.
  5. Not bothering to make up a schedule for each day.
  6. Over scheduling making it impossible to stay on track. (“Control”)

Time traps can throw you off schedule. Do not lose focus on your daily goals. In order to be productive each day attack your high priorities and objectives. Think about your own time traps and lean to avoid them.




Works Cited
“Control Your Time.” Time Management. 2001 BusinessTown.com, LLC. 8 July 2002< http://www.businesstown.com/time/time-control.asp >