Time: a precious resource

Your time would be perceived much more precious if:

1. You were limited to only so many hours a day
2. You were limited how to utilize this time

Time is a precious resource and discovering simple ways to take charge of your busy schedule to achieve your goals can be daunting. While there are many suggestive guidelines to manage your time, it is really based on your own personal style of work. In the daily grind of the decision making process not all circumstances can be quickly or easily resolved. A key factor is to develop a system that works for you to stop wasting your precious time. If you feel stuck or the flow of ideas has dried up for the moment, move on to a more constructive project or assignment that also needs your attention. You can always go back and pick up where you left off with a fresh perspective and a new vision. Remember, it is not about working faster, rather it is about working smarter by adopting the practice of recognizing how much time to spend on assignments or projects.

Your time is a valuable resource that should not be futile; the one factor you can never get back. It is very easy to be perceived as a multi-task extraordinaire creating the illusion of “busy, being busy” while falling short consistently to achieve positive outcomes and goals. Life will become much less stressful if your time is effectively managed, planned, and organized.

 

Solutions to develop in your day:

1. Have a plan

Think and plan in advance is a good strategy to practice before starting any new assignment or project. A good plan of action provides a solid routine, discipline to follow through and stay focused on each task to completion.

 

2. Organize your plan

Begin by having a vision - a goal in order to orchestrate the steps necessary to come to the end result you want to accomplish. Stay upbeat as you accomplish each step towards your goal. There are always hurdles to overcome and how you embrace each challenge will be the difference between achieving vs abandoning your goal.

 

3. Set boundaries with your time

Schedule yourself a timeline for a project such as two hours and mark it on your calendar the same as scheduling a meeting. Once your time is up, put down what you have been doing and move on. Schedule another time to carry on until your project is complete. Setting deadlines and scheduling tasks is a way of maintaining focus on your goals

 

4. Schedule your time

Five minutes before your timeline, make notes on what you would like to do or follow up on the next time when you are scheduled for your project. This practice will always make you feel fresh with new perspective on ideas.

 

5. Set goals

Goal setting is a positive way to focus your task and to create an opportunity to review specific, realistic, measurable and achievable results. Clear goals will provide a sense of direction and a better vision.

 

6. Thinking 80-20 rule

This measurement tool has been in existence for generations. It signifies 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of the tasks. Start by identifying 20% of the most important task to accomplish and then prioritize how your time will be of maximum benefit for each task. Consider prioritizing each task according to importance for example A,B or C, with A being highest priority.

 

7. Take advantage of your own natural rhythm clock

This is the time of day when you are at your peak performance and your natural brain juices are exceptional. Scheduling yourself for prime tasks during your internal prime time is a logical way to achieve maximum performance in a given amount of time.

 

8. Stay flexible within your day

Include in your day time for interruptions and distractions. A good measuring tool is to plan 60% of your time and 40% to deal with interruptions, unexpected delays, last minute decision making, and any other daily distractions. Schedule your day to be interrupted to minimize the level of stress. For your prime tasks, set aside time that can be reasonably scheduled in your day without interruptions.

 

9. Break up your tasks

A main reason tasks are put off, seem daunting and lead to procrastination is because they are viewed as insurmountable. It’s that big rock you are trying to push over to the other side of the mountain that keeps crushing and rolling over backwards on top of you. After a while it just becomes onerous and you give up. A solution is to break up the big tasks into smaller sections and doing each individually. Smaller tasks can be done in shorter, manageable time slots. By doing a little at a time you will eventually complete the task.

 

10. Avoid urgencies

A task can turn into an urgent emergency because of personal procrastination. Some people work best under last-minute deadlines, but for most this is unnecessary stress. Setting a realistic deadline for each task will reduce important items from becoming urgent emergencies.

 

Your day does not have to be this rigorous. The point is to find the balance between obsessively working on one idea to the polar extreme of procrastination. Over time with continuous practice each task, even the most painful ones, will be accomplished.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.