Posts Tagged ‘goals’

TIME MANAGEMENT – NO!

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

I like this approach to time management because it subtly puts the focus on managing your life from an empowered place as opposed to a disempowered place. It comes from realizing what is truly important to you and focusing your time on that. We don’t realize how much time we waste on things that do not support us in our goals.
Read on for more insights to this different approach to time management.

Many people want to be coached to manage their time better. I say NO! to that. You cannot manage time anyway; it just keeps ticking away no matter what you do.

What you can do is manage yourself based on the two concepts I keep mentioning: self-knowledge and self-acceptance. Following are four principles to maximize the time that you have. They take time to incorporate into your life at the habit level. Don’t give up. Keep practicing.

1) GOOD ENOUGH

Accept that no human being is meant to do everything. We all have our uniqueness; things we do better than others and vice versa. Perfection is not a human condition. Cut yourself some slack and adopt the concept of “good enough”. You can rework your resume 50 times. Is it really so much better than a much earlier draft? You can shop for the perfect dress endlessly? Wasn’t the first one you tried and liked as good as the 15th? How much time did you spend past “good enough”? Demand higher standards of excellence where it really counts.

2) SPECIALNESS

Concentrate on excelling in what you do well, what you would enjoy doing better, and new areas you would like to learn. Delegate, hire, share, partner with people who complement you or can fill the needs you have in areas you don’t enjoy or do not know that well. Don’t ever berate yourself for not being able to do it all. Appreciate your talents and excellence and flaunt them. They are you, yours and very special. Let others have their specialness too. The results will not only save time but enrich and free you.

3) ENERGY AND TIME

Know and honor your energy levels. Are you a morning person, do you have an afternoon slump? Your time will be best used if you pace the tasks you have to do based on this knowledge. Do the most challenging at your peak energy time. Build in your Joy Breaks (see last month’s newsletter) both as rewards for finishing a formidable task and to refresh yourself at low energy periods.

4) FOCUS IN THE MOMENT

Develop habits that help you focus on what you are doing in the moment. Do not allow yourself to think of what you have to do next while you are doing what you are doing. Put a “do not disturb” sign on your door and do not take phone calls. By putting everything else out of your mind while focusing on the task at hand, you will be using your time efficiently. If you get stuck on something, take a break. Move to something else, get the information you need to continue, change scenery, stretch, whatever it takes, but don’t sit there stuck.

Note: The suggestions I make are not one dimensional or simple. The questions I suggest you ask yourself have multiple answers and may be different on different days. I suggest you keep them all in a file or notebook and refer back to them regularly. You will gain a lot if you do.

Dorene Lehavi, Ph.D. is principal of Next Level Business and Professional Coaching. She coaches Professionals and Business Partners and teaches teleclasses on techniques to break through barriers to the next level. Dr. Lehavi offers a complimentary coaching session so you can experience how coaching can work for you. Visit http://www.CoachingforYourNextLevel.com


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Time Management Strategies for Getting Organized

Friday, September 28th, 2007

This is a good article for giving people great strategies for managing their time. If you want to build additional time into your schedule, these tips are a great way to make your time much more efficient.

Do you constantly find yourself running out of time? Do you get everything done that you want to each day or do you find yourself with more activities then you are able to handle? If you can relate to these problems then you need some time management strategies for getting organized.

Know what you want

Before implementing any other time management strategies for getting organized you need to know what you want. If you have no goals and do not know what you actually want to achieve with the time you have been given then you will find yourself saying “yes” to everything, even where you should be saying “no”. Knowing what you want to achieve keeps you disciplined in your time management.

Write down your Goals

In order to implement time management strategies you need to know what you want, but even people who know what they want do not always manage their time effectively. Strategies for getting organized also include writing down those goals. Take some time to write down what you want to achieve in life. What is it that you want people to say about you when you reach the end of your life? What dreams do you want to fulfill? Write them down and then set goals which say when you want to have achieved them by and how you are going to go about achieving them.

Prioritize

What are your priorities? When implementing time management strategies for getting organized you are going to need to think carefully about what is most important to you. Many possible activities will come your way each and every day and if you do not know what your priorities are then you may find yourself doing all the trivial things rather than those things that are really important for achieving your goals. Priorities should be worked out regularly with the help of a to-do list.

Create a To-Do List

Goals are extremely important in effective time management strategies but they can also be long term and if you do not have other strategies for getting organized then you may not accomplish those goals. Create a to-do list regularly and order it in terms of your priorities. Then you will have a workable plan for achieving your goals and can systematically work through your to-do list, accomplishing those things that are most important to you.

Categorize your activities

When looking at all the activities which occupy your day try to break them down into a number of categories. This categorization needs to be done on two levels. Firstly work out what activities you need to do, what activities you can delegate to others, and what activities are actually not important to be done at all. Delegate those activities that can be delegated, cut out the unimportant activities and then re-categorize the activities that only you can do and that are important for you to do. You may want to categorize this list into categories such as work, family, social, physical (health), spiritual, etc.

Use a Weekly Planner

Once you have categorized your activities the last of our time management strategies for getting organized is to use a weekly planner. Block out times on your weekly planner when you can do those activities that you need to and that you categorized above. Use different colors for different activity categories. Take time regularly to fill in your weekly planner and then review it daily to ensure that you do not miss any important events and that you stick to your goals.

Don’t Procrastinate

One of the worst enemies of effective time management is procrastination. It is important that you start implementing these time management strategies for getting organized today. If you wait until tomorrow, you may never put them into practice so start today.

In conclusion, effective time management begins with strategies for getting organized such as knowing what you want, writing down your goals, prioritizing your to-do list, categorizing your activities and using a weekly planner. These time management strategies should be implemented regularly and begun immediately to ensure that you reach your goals and accomplish all that you want to with your life.
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[tags]goals, to do lists, planning, time management[/tags]

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Fail to Plan….or Plan to Fail

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

This is an decent article about running a business and how the subject of time management fits into all of the other aspects of a business. The author says that time management is the key to business planning. His illustration of how he uses time management techniques for business is interesting, yet so common that we wouldn’t ordinarily think of it as a time management issue.

Running a business, whether it be an offline multi-billion
dollar company or an online part time [tag]home business[/tag], they
share many similar traits.

One of the biggest obstacles I have endeavoured to
translate to many, many [tag]small business[/tag] / home business
people, is a very simple phrase……’ Treat It Like a REAL
business, Because It IS a REAL Business’.

The fundemental reasoning behind so many failures in small
business, is the clear lack of willingness to act like a
real business. Many people may ‘ have a go ‘, they could ‘
give it a try ‘, or ‘ let’s see what happens ‘ – all with
the.. ‘ what have I got to lose? ‘ attitude. THAT, my
friends, is one of the biggest secrets to FAILURE.

OK – s let’s assume that your small business / home
business / BizOp etc., is NOT you main source of income. It
is NOT responsible for putting food in you family’s
stomachs, it is NOT what keeps a roof over your head…..
it is NOT the sole form of income that you, your family and
your Bank Manager rely upon.

So look at it like this. If it WAS, would you put as much
effort into it as you do now? I can pretty much guarantee
that your efforts would be substantially more, because
everything relies on the success of your business,
via-a-vis the money your business generates.

Well, now we have ascertained that you should be running it
like a real business…….Are you?

  • Do you have a business plan?
  • Do you know each step that your business will take over the next week, month, year, three years….?
  • Have you prepared your agenda for acquiring new customers, products, joint venture partners?
  • Do you have a time-table of events?
  • How often do you research, analyse, read-up and check out your competitors?
  • When was the last time you contacted your client base?
  • Do you offer them special offers, free resources and reports? What about surverying them and asking for their opinions?
  • How often do you do all this?
  • Does your business have a ‘company objective’?
  • Has your ‘company’ it’s own ‘customer mission statement’?
  • Have you set yourself / your business targets….use my S.M.A.R.T. Principle…… …….targets which must be
    • Specific………….. each item / area of business must be targeted spcifically.
    • Measurable…….. be able to measure your targets, how much, how often etc.
    • Achievable……..don’t think that you can sell 2 million units if your competitors only sell 50 units.
    • Realisitc………….. behonest with yourself. Can it be done?
    • Time-bound…….give limitations and deadlines to whatever you are planning. Open-ended is no good.

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