Is Time "Running Out" for You?

For some people it doesn't seem to matter how long their day is. They just never seem to have enough time. The clock is ticking and it's ticking too fast for comfort. It feels like they have a million things to do, a couple thousand of which were actually due last week and every new task is urgent and can't wait...

Sounds familiar? Well if it does you might be one of those people who just don't have a very good relationship with time. It is often a sign that you're not in control of your own day-planner. You may have some things on your to do list that you set out to accomplish, but anything and everything that you come across interferes with your plans. Someone or something else seems to be claiming your time to the extent that you never seem to get anything done. You might be asking yourself: "How can I possibly get everything done?" Good question. The answer is very simple: "You can't and you shouldn't want to".

Wanting to get everything done is probably the main reason why so many people are short on time. They're trying to do too many things and fail to realize that there are only so many tasks that one person can accomplish in a day. Instead of focusing on getting everything done, focus on those things that really need to get done. Separating what's important from what's not important will help you prioritize your tasks. And once you've done this, just remember that priorities are in order. That means that when you're working on something with a high priority it is okay to turn down someone asking you to do something that has a lower priority. Learning to say "no” is a huge time-saver. Of course you can also say "no" to yourself when you find yourself tempted to interrupt your work for another task that pops up. You will find that if you focus on the most important task that needs to get done during the day, the major things, you will probably have enough time left to fit in some of the minor things.

Time is an area where we can be absolutely sure that everyone is treated equally. No matter where you're from or what your background is everybody has the same amount of hours in a day. The difference is in how we choose to spend those hours. And that is why some people are considered miracle workers while others never get anything accomplished. Perhaps you've heard the story of the business consultant giving this simple piece of advice to one of his clients. His client was a CEO of a large corporation who felt he and his management team wasn’t performing to their best abilities. They just didn't seem to get the work done. The consultant listened intently for a while and then gave the following advice:

"Every night before your head hits the pillow, take a piece of paper and write down the six most important tasks you must accomplish the next day. Write them down in the order of importance. Then the next day, it at all possible, start on the first task and don't move on to the next task until the first has been finished. This may not always be possible because sometimes the most important thing can be something that comes up later during the day. For instance your most important task may be a certain presentation that is scheduled to take place somewhere late in the afternoon. In that case you would move on to point number two. You wouldn't want to be sitting idle all day, right?"

When the client asked for the price of this advice, he was told to simply put in into practice and then determine the value himself. After a certain period of time had past the client wired an amount of $25,000 to the business consultant. Apparently this little piece of advice had worked out quite well for him and the members of his management team. Do this for a while and you will see your effectiveness soar. A great side effect is that people around you are bound to see it too.

Some pointers that may help you in this direction:

Become more efficient in your communication. This means: on the phone, in emails or letters, and of course in face-to-face conversations. A lot of time spent in communication is very inefficient. This is especially wasteful because you're not just wasting your own time but also somebody else's.

Touch everything only once. This can be a really great time-saver. Every piece of information should preferably pass through your hands only once. This goes for mail, email, but also things like certain websites, articles, newspapers and other sources of information.

In order to do this successfully you will need to learn how to take decisions quickly. Some decisions just aren't worth too much of your valuable time. The ability to take decisions is the key to becoming successful anyway. So why wouldn't you want to speed that process up a little. The ability to take decisions quickly, especially minor ones, will free up a lot of time that can be spent on more important things. Aside from that, it increases self-confidence, which will help you in when taking decisions on more important issues.

To-Do Lists - Do They Work Or Are They All Hype?

Planning is essential in making the best use of our time. A tool that many people use to try and maintain a sense of priorities is a to-do list. Have you ever used a to-do list? Well, the first step is we decide to make a list, and then as we accomplish a task from the list we cross it off. What a great feeling you get when you cross off something from that list! And when we do something that wasn't on the list, we add it to the list so that we can cross it off - another great feeling! We just love to cross things off the list. Why do we love it? It feels terrific and studies show that when we cross a task off our list our brain produces a rush of endorphins, causing us to feel good.

Of course we want to feel good, but this is a temporary high. Traditional to-do lists are just maintenance lists - it's what needs to be done to keep our heads above water. We often reach the end of the day and realize we didn't spend our time doing the things we most wanted to. That could be because the highest priorities in our lives rarely make it onto the to-do lists. Let's change that.

Hyrum Smith, author of The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, suggests renaming the list a "Prioritized Daily Task List." The name's a bit long, but it suggests that more important items are going to be on the list along with daily maintenance items. Smith indicates there are three steps to making a meaningful prioritized daily task list:

1. Make a list of everything you would like to accomplish today, including tasks that are not urgent. Jot down anything and everything.

2. Give a value to each item on the list. It's called the ABC valuing system. Assign the letter A to anything that is vital and must absolutely be done today. The letter B goes next to tasks that are important and should be done. Last, letter C is given to anything that is relatively trivial and that could be done. If nothing else happens today, you will accomplish the A's. If near the end of the day all of the A's have been accomplished then you can do the B's. If at the end of the day you have time left over, you can tackle the C's.

3. Give a numerical value to each item on the list. Go through your list one more time and prioritize the A's, B's and C's. That is, determine the relative importance of each task. For example, the most important A task would be labeled A-1, the second most important, A-2, etc. Do the same with the B's and C's.

So now you have a well-prioritized list. But it's no good unless you use it properly. How good would you feel if at the end of the day all of the C's have been done, but the two most important things, A-1 and A-2, remain untouched?

You've given the tasks their value; now proceed according to that ranking for a true feeling of accomplishment. Don’t feel too bad if you don’t get to everything in one day, remember to keep your priorities correct and accomplish your most important task you can for that day. The prioritized daily task list can be a powerful tool!

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