10 Tips - What Is Successful Time Management?
by Isabel Baldry

What is successful time management? This is all individual, but it always involves these elements:

Good organization and structure, clearly defined and prioritized action plan, and finally some kind of satisfaction or enjoyment from the task.

Here are 10 tips to help you achieve all of this:

Tip 1. The secret to successful time management is closely related to the clarity of the goals you have set. Learning these basic secrets will surely benefit you so you can do all the things that you want to accomplish in a day and in a year. You need to be extrememly clear in your mind as to what you try to achieve.

Tip 2. Make sure that your goals are achievable. Some people set unachievable or over-ambitious goals, which can seriously mess up schedules and interim goals. It is vital that you set your goals correctly.

Tip 3. Asking the correct questions to yourself can help you determine your achievable goals. Learn to be honest in your answers to accomplish realistic goals. Asking questions is one of the basic elements in successful time management. Asking yourself is a therapeutic technique to help you find unanswered questions.

Tip 4. You need to have an action plan. Managing your time means putting in some serious action - using your skills and intelligence in achieving it. A clearly defined action plan is one vital step in organizing your time. The action plan should include a lists of your goals and your specific actions towards each goal - along with detailed responsibilities allocated to each step of the plan.

Tip 5. Time to get organized - and start with your PC. If you are storing files on your computer, make sure to have a tracking sheet on what you are saving and what are the files that are not needed or that needs to be updated. Much time is wasted searching for nuggets of gold on your PC among hundreds of unneccessary documents.

Tip 6. Learn to prioritize things. Write all the things that you need to accomplish in a day. Once you have the list, mark the most important things. If you have a long project, you need to break them into small projects where you can squeeze some on your daily activity. Remember to use the rule of important activities first. This is not a new rule of the thumb, but it is proven to be very effective.

Tip 7. Once you have categorized all the things that you need to do in a day, you need to put the amount of time you will spend on each daily task and activity. This is very important, so you need to put the exact and realistic amount of time where you can accomplish each activity within your day. Never waste time.

Tip 8. Don't overwork you time management and get caught in "paralysis by analysis". There are people who spend the whole day figuring out and making list of the things that they should do in a day. Bottom line, at the end of the day, they have a beautiful list but no real accomplishments.

Tip 9. Keep in mind that you are making a realistic goal to achieve your purpose. Remember that every plan have flaws. When you plan for your goal, you need to have actions. You need to plot your plan; you ask questions, are part of the plan and focus more on the results. This way you will be achieving your goal in no time. Once you have reached your goal, you will realize that you have achieved your goal and stick with your plan as predicted in a very effortless manner.

Tip 10. Find enjoyment in what you are doing. Even if the task is not that fun, try to find some nugget of learning - or focus on the bits you do enjoy. Procrastination usually happens when we are bored - so try to add some enjoyment into your tasks. If the task really isn't inspiring, add enjoyment by allowing yourself to celebrate once the most boring tasks are completed. Just add 5 minutes of something you really enjoy as a celebration, before hitting on the next boring task.

So now you know how to manage you time. Time to go back to work!
 

About the Author

Isabel Baldry is a freelance writer who writes passionately about a number of subjects. More: What is successful time management.