TIME MANAGEMENT

What Type Of Time Manager Are You Now?

Often, you can see where your problems in time management lie by taking a close look at yourself right now. The way that you do things now can often be your ticket to improving your situation into the future. But, how can you accomplish this?

You need to find a way to actually record what you do each day. This may be small things or larger things, but it all needs to be accumulated and used to construct a plan of action.

A good place to start is with your average work day since this is often the largest chunk of anyone's life. Pick a day and explore it. Through this chapter, we will show you how you can see where your time management problems really lie so that you can fix them and overcome them so that the end result is successful time management.

Your Possible Time Drains

If you think of time management as being a small hole in which grains of sand pass through, you need to determine what is allowing them to pass through.

There are many things that seem small and insignificant that really will add up to being a potential problem for most people. Here are some of these things that you need to take into consideration.

•How much of your time do you spend reading email, reading an online news report, checking out the sports games from the night before and finding out who is online at any given time?

•How much time do you spend eating lunch, getting a drink or making a cup of coffee for yourself?

•How much time does it take you to get into the place you work? For example, do you need to stop and chat with friends and colleagues first, greet the boss, check your mail, grab the newspaper, etc….?

•How much time do you spend working that is really being spent on things other than work?

Consider all of the things, small things too, that are potential drains on your time and your work load?

You may see clearly how easily it is for these small things to overcome the larger elements. In fact, all of these small things are so insignificant you may not remember doing them which means even more of your time is drained.

Now, flip this around. How much actual time, minutes and hours, do you put into actually doing your work? Actually working, that is.

You may be very surprised to learn just how much of your day is considered to be doing things that are unimportant, unrelated to work or even just simply a wasted time. You may be appalled by the way in which you really spend your days.

Time of Day Drains

Another common problem for those that are wasting time is that of the time of day. For example, for many individuals, the time of the day that they are in is the reason that they struggle to accomplish tasks. A good example is after lunch time. You are sleepy and tied, generally from having a full stomach and a tired mind. You are less likely to be successful at any task that you complete at this time of the day and that may be frustrating enough that you simply stop working during this time making it even worse on you altogether.

Consider what time of day is your draining point.