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Are you annoyed at yourself as your list of ‘things to do’ never gets any smaller? Coping with a hectic work schedule can be difficult and if you are at a loss as to how to achieve your goals and work on important tasks efficiently, then perhaps you should be finding ways to manage your time better.
No matter how hard I tried to get on top of my work schedule, time always seemed to run away with me and I would finish the week feeling discontented with what I had achieved, and often having to work weekends to catch up.
In order to manage my time more effectively I had to set myself goals, something that may seem obvious but I hadn’t actually done. Goals can help you focus and prioritize; they need to be achievable and realistic. There are 3 types of goals, most of your time should be spent on your critical goals, customer commitments should be amongst the top priorities. Supportive goals are those that can wait and comprise incorporating better processes to make things run more smoothly, whilst wish goals are intended to make your life a lot nicer, like a company car and new office!
Discussing my time issue with friends one evening they suggested I started to write down every single activity I did at work, from answering the phone and emails to visiting clients. So I decided to give it a go and kept a notepad and pen with me, excited at the prospect of the time I was going to save by dropping time wasting activities.
It wasn’t that easy to keep track of my time, I kept getting caught up in work and forgetting what I had done for the previous 30 minutes, or losing my bit of paper and having to start all over again! A log has to be detailed and everything you do noted down as this is where you will identify the wasted hours, it can be pretty boring and mundane. Then I discovered you could actually download time tracking software from the internet which can help you track time and bill more accurately.
There are certain activities we all do during the day, known as personal time-eating habits they waste time and distract us from our set goals. Everyone has different habits that effectively waste time; however there are 7 main ones that most people are guilty of. These are procrastination, over-helpfulness, distraction by email, under-delegation, doing ineffective tasks, stopping and starting on tasks and not focusing on critical goals. I was certainly guilty of more than a few.
Once I had identified my bad habits I had to break them. This is done by reducing the time spent on them, delegating them, or just not doing them at all. The time saved can then be transferred to your critical goals. To be effective, you should only break one habit at a time, otherwise you end up overwhelmed and achieve nothing.
I resolved my bad habits by turning off my email notifier and only checked my inbox at set times, generally first thing in the morning and again an hour before I left the office. If I started a task I made myself finish it before going onto the next task, also I delegated certain tasks to other members of staff. I referred to my critical goals every morning and stuck to my list of things to do that day.
If you need to manage your time more effectively, then download a time tracking application and start logging your activities. Review each activity and decide if it’s necessary, look for tasks that can be delegated and if you are avoiding completing a critical goal, then identify why and get it finished. Set a time aside each week for meetings and don’t call unnecessary ones unless it’s very important, and check through your emails only at certain times during the day.
Check online for a time tracking application that can improve your time management and get you achieving those critical goals much quicker, then maybe you can even find time to work on those wish goals!
Michiel Van Kets provides article services for Anne Currie who is the manager of workingProgram, a website providing time tracking software. Visit the site for information on products such as the Qlockwork, a time tracking application that helps with organising time, filling out timesheets and billing effectively. No timers are required the software automatically tracks all the applications on your PC and it's seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Outlook.Find useful time management tips in the forum and the featured blog.
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