Twenty Steps to
Successful Time Management
1. Clarify your
objectives. Put them in writing. Then set your priorities. Make
sure you’re
getting what you really want out of life.
2. Focus on
objectives, not on activities. Your most important activities are those
that help you
accomplish your objectives.
3. Set at least
one major objective each day and achieve it.
4. Record a time
log periodically to analyze how you use your time, and keep bad
time habits out
of your life.
5. Analyze
everything you do in terms of your objectives. Find out what you do,
when you do it,
why you do it. Ask yourself what would happen if you didn’t do it.
If the answer is
nothing, then stop doing it.
6. Eliminate at
least one time-waster from your life each week.
7. Plan your
time. Write out a plan for each week. Ask yourself what you hope to
accomplish by
the end of the week and what you will need to do to achieve those
results.
8. Make a to-do
list every day. Be sure it includes your daily objectives, priorities,
and time
estimates, not just random activities.
9. Schedule your
time every day to make sure you accomplish the most important
things first. Be
sure to leave room for the unexpected and for interruptions. But
remember that
things that are scheduled have a better chance of working out than
things that are
unscheduled.
10. Make sure
that the first hour of your workday is productive.
11. Set time
limits for every task you undertake.
12. Take the
time to do it right the first time. You won’t have to waste time doing
it over.
13. Eliminate
recurring crises from your life. Find out why things keep going
wrong. Learn to
proact instead of react.
14. Institute a
quiet hour in your day – a block of uninterrupted time for your most
important tasks.
15. Develop the
habit of finishing what you start. Don’t jump from one thing to
another, leaving
a string of unfinished tasks behind you.
16. Conquer
procrastination. Learn to do it now.
17. Make better
time management a daily habit. Set your objectives, clarify your
priorities, plan
and schedule your time. Do first things first. Resist your impulses
to do
unscheduled tasks. Review your activities.
18. Never spend
time on less important things when you could be spending it on
more important
things.
19. Take time for
yourself—time to dream, time to relax, time to live.
20. Develop a
personal philosophy of time – what time means to you and how time
relates to your life.