While the rise in technology with faxes, emails, cell phones, and the internet has made communication easier, it has created more tasks for people to do and made their lives more complicated. There’s so much more to juggle in one day now.
With so much time spent checking and responding to voice mail, emails, and a multitude of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In, who has time to actually get any work done yet alone enjoy free time for relaxation and recreation?
There is a solution. There is a way to be more organized. And there is a way to have better time management. It involves choosing goals and honoring priorities. It also involves focusing attention on one thing at a time.
Set Goals and Honor Priorities
In order to be more organized, get organized. People are more likely to reach their goals if they are clear about what they want to achieve. Some people set goals once a year and break them down into monthly, weekly, and daily action steps. Others live more in the moment and only focus on weekly or daily goals. Any method is fine, as long as you prioritize your goals.
Writing goals down on a piece of paper helps people to stay focused on what they want to achieve in a day, week, or month. When the phone rings or the temptation to check emails or Facebook arises, people can look at their daily priority list and choose what’s most important for them at that moment. If they want to finish their current task or project they can let the caller go to voice mail. Then they can check messages, emails, or Twitter later in the day when it is convenient.
What many people find helpful is to give to themselves first thing in the day. It builds self-esteem when a person honors their need for exercise, nutrition, or meditation before getting lost in family or work commitments. They have more energy to give to others when they have given to themselves first.
Another way people stay organized is to only check messages and emails at specified times during the day. For some, this may be when they first arrive at work and then before they leave at the end of the day. For others, it may be during a coffee or lunch break. This empowers them to focus their time and energy on more important tasks throughout the day.
Focus Attention and Have More Time
Many people pride themselves on being good at multitasking but end up scattering their energy in so many places they’re exhausted by the end of the day. Trying to accomplish several tasks at one time dissipates a person’s energy and ends up wasting time. When people move into the present moment and focus attention on one task at a time, they move into their natural rhythm and become more productive. They achieve success with ease, not effort.
Time management is about managing the time spent on various activities throughout the day. Once goals and priorities have been set, choosing how much time to spend on each activity becomes easy. It’s empowering for people to take charge of their lives by taking charge of their precious time. When a person says yes to one activity, it may mean saying no to another. It’s a choice, just as saying no to an unimportant activity frees up time for a more important project.
In order to be more organized and have better time management, decide what is most important to experience, do and accomplish for the day. Focus on the first priority and when it’s finished, move on to the next priority. Decide where to schedule tasks that are not important, but need to be done. Reduce or eliminate time-wasting activities that don’t support your goals and priorities. This will free up time and increase energy for what’s truly important.
