Create Time…..Be Different…..

“People don’t waste time. They just spend it on things they don’t need to do.”

Want to create a Time…???? Check out the following exercises…that will help you to Create Time…

“Manage your time as you manage your money.” These are great time management exercises to keep you fit for managing your time & will help you to ensure you are spending your time where you want to. I believe that you need to do use exercises such as these on a regular basis to ensure your time management fitness is where you want it to be, just like you need to do to maintain physical fitness. Try these and see how much you improve your time management….Be Different….

1. Estimate BEFORE you start how long a task will take (when finished) compare with the actual:-

“People can divide into three groups- those who make things happen; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what happened.”

The first of the time management exercises involves finding out how well you estimate the actual elapsed time a task will take. It is much easier to get control of your time when you are able to accurately estimate how long tasks will take. Most people never develop this time management skill. This activity is designed so you can find out how well you estimate the time a task will take and to help you improve your time estimation if needed. The basic activity is to pick a task (I suggest you start with a relatively small task that will take less than one hour). Estimate how long you think it will take to complete it. This is elapsed time, from when you start until you are finished. Then time yourself. Do the task. When finished see how much elapsed time you actually needed. Do this for 5 tasks over a week. When you get quite accurate with smaller tasks, try estimating a bigger task. You may need to plan this out and break it into blocks of time over several days. When you have completed this process for 10-15 tasks, take 15 minutes (away from your desk) to reflect on what you do differently to manage your time now that you are more accurate at estimating the time it takes to complete tasks.

2) Track your time:- Find out where you time really goes

“If I had 8 hours to chop a tree I would spend 6 hours sharpening my axe.”

Time tracking should be simple and only take a few minutes a day.

Step 1 -- Identify between 5 and 10 KEY categories for the activities you do. Write it in time wise description for each activities. Some examples are: Study, Classes, Collages, Job, meetings, email, paperwork, staff management, personal, planning, travel, interruptions. There will also be specific activities for your role. I suggest that Personal and Planning MUST be included.

Step 2 -- Analyze the information. Where is your time going? What patterns do you see? What are you avoiding? What have you already changed just by tracking your time? How much planning do you do?

Step 3 -- Decide on what you want to change, create a plan and take immediate action!

3) Connect your plan to your goals:-

“By working sincerely for eight hours a day, you can get promoted to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.”

This exercise involves reflecting on your daily, weekly, monthly plan and identifying which activates help you progress to achieving your monthly, quarterly, yearly and/or life goals. This highlights a few things.

Firstly, are you clear about your goals! Assuming that you are, then this exercise highlights if you have a day, a week or a month where you are doing very little to progress toward achieving your most important goals. Once you become aware of this you can change things.

Let me outline the steps for this time management activity.

1. Complete your plan as you usually do.

2. Change your mindset to 'big picture' Just look on the world map. Reflect on your plan overall, rather than focusing on the individual tasks. Now get out your written goals (by month, quarter, year or longer - whichever suits you) and read them.

3. Physically number your goals and then write the goal number next to the task that helps you achieve that goal. Reflect again on your plan. Is it a good plan for you?

4. Look at the plan again. Is there at least one task for each of your goals? Should there be? Are you tasks (and/or your goals) all in one area of your life, like maybe work?

5. Change your plan to connect the plan and the tasks to achieving your goals.

Best Luck…Be Different……SmileForever…..