Time Management Self Improvement

We live in a busy, even hurried day and age, to be sure, and that is precisely why we must start making our priorities really work for us, for this is actually the key to having greater success and happiness in life.

Once you have established the main key result areas of your life, such as Spiritual, Family, Career, Health, Financial, and so on, the next step is to begin the process of establishing priorities within those key result areas. To do this, make a list of goals and objectives within each of your key result areas, and place them in order of importance.

For example, my marriage is a key result area in my life, so I will begin to determine what my priorities are within my marriage. I know for sure that good communications is high on the list, especially as it relates to listening to my wife and hearing what she is sharing with me. Tuning in and trusting her intuition is another priority in my marriage. These, and many more priorities, are all listed in both our marriage plan and life strategies, and help to keep me on course, or bring me back to what’s most important in our relationship, when I do get off track. These strategies must be working, because we have a strong and healthy marriage, even after 26 years.

Make sure you do not just set these priorities and forget about them. I encourage you to review them on a consistent basis. Share your priorities with those people you trust. Establish some accountability to make them become realities. I might add that writing down and or printing out your priorities and getting them out of your head and in front of you in black and white is also great mental therapy.

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Robert Prentice of Professional Developments Systems has spent the last twenty years bringing inspiration and motivation to business owners as well as their employees. For more information visit his website at http://www.mrattitudespeaks.com

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Time management - that’s like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. We are trying to harness something we can’t touch of feel - only experience and see the results. We have a gazillion time saving devices. Just think for a moment of all the ‘things’ in your life now (microwave, speed dialing on your phone, high speed internet connections, TVs that can be programmed to watch 2 shows at once, etc.), all of which are designed to save time. And for those moment that are ’saved’, well, saved for what? We are a hurried, frantic society with a pace that is on wide open from the moment our feet hit the floor.

A recent search on Google for “time management” yielded 700,000,000 hits! If you visit Amazon.com and search books on time management, there were more than 7,600 books on the topic. We are constantly look for THE system, key or process to manage that thing we can only experience. At some point in your life you have probably longed for a 36 hour day. Sometimes the “busy-ness” of our lives consumes our time. What if we switched our thinking from managing time to three building blocks that define our time?

Value Management

Look at a person’s calendar and checkbook and you’ll get a powerful snapshot of what they value. It’s a statement of what we think is important, what we value. That’s what we consider worthwhile or desirable. Take a moment (you know one you have saved!) and jot down what you value most in life. Jot down your top 5 values. Now, with the same paper, look at your calendar and think about the normal course of your life. Jot down the top 5 things that capture your time. How do the lists compare? If you are like most people there is a huge incongruence here. What they say they value and where their time is spent does not truly reflect their heart. Let’s start here. What do your truly value? In what ways does your life reflect those values? What changes are you willing to make to close the gap of incongruence?

Priority Management

What gets priority in your life? Typically, what you value. Priorities reflect what’s of greatest importance to us. Is there still a gap between priorities and our values? If you focus on what is truly of value to you (not your neighbor, co-worker, cultural/societal expectation) then it becomes easier to prioritize. If we focus on what we value, then prioritizing is easier. That change in focus will provide more options, more choices. Having choices is the “power, right, or liberty to choose, options.” We are faced with a multitude of choices in a day. How we make the choice is a statement of who we are based on our personality, environment, culture, preferences, comfort zones, etc.

Your boss comes in your office and says “I need you in a meeting now” doesn’t seem to offer you many options. You value your job (and what that allows you to do in your life) so of course, you will respond a certain way - even if it is not preferable. Sometimes we can make a choice about which way we drive to work. That may be influenced by our mood, where we may want to stop off along the way, how quickly we need to get somewhere, etc. This is just one way to illustrate the number of choices we make in a day. But if we were to think about how those choices influences our time, well, hmm, why do I spend my time that way? What does that choice reflect about me, my values, and my legacy?

Decision Management

Did you know that not making a choice or decision is still a decision? After reading this article and you don’t make any changes in your life - you are making a decision - that the “same old” is preferable. You are actively deciding what you want your life and legacy to be like every day! To make a decision is to reach a conclusion, reflecting that you’ve made up your mind. Are those conclusions/decisions what you want your life to reflect? What you wear each day may not be that big of a decision, but how your time is spent can have huge ramifications. Are your decisions about time based on your values and priorities? What decision about time could you make today that would bring about a shift in your view of time management?

There are a plethora of time saving devices. The process, system or strategy is not THE answer - it’s just the conduit. The key to the success system is YOUR
answers and the actions you choose to take. By making an opportunity to review and evaluate our values, priorities, and the power of decisions we can then make choices that manage our time effectively.

Jan Hinton is a coach, presenter, and humorist. She has been called the perfect blend of Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres. She is wildly passionate about unleashing great answers to big questions. She provides a variety of resources to help you stand out from the crowd at her website, http://www.stonesoupcoaching.com.

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In our Change Your Life Challenge e-group, each weekend we choose three goals to keep us on track and focused. After posting my goals this past week, I was reminded of something my friend Sara said when we were teaching at a Publishing University last month in Washington DC. She was talking about how “to do lists” often become “to-don’t” lists because people do not use them effectively. She promoted the use of the 3-Step-Action List that is used in the Challenge to make a clear action plan with focus versus a long list that is unmanageable.

I think the concept of a “To-Don’t” list is quite interesting. We don’t intentionally wish our “to-dos” to become “to don’ts” but if managed ineffectively that is often what happens. This week I have decided to take the concept of a “To-Don’t” list one step further. As you make your action plan for the day or the week, also create a “To-Don’t” list. List out three things that you won’t do this week.

Here are some example of what might be on that list:

I won’t over-commit my time

I won’t sacrifice my self-care time

I won’t let someone else bring me down

I won’t spend any more time than absolutely necessary with negative people

I won’t engage in negative self-talk

I won’t overspend

I won’t say “I can’t”

Try it! Think of things that often hold you back or leave you feeling less than great and add them to this list. Then pick one a day and commit to not doing it. I think it is a fun exercise to focus on three things per day that move us forward (the three step action list) and then to add one thing that pulls us backward that we won’t do.

Brook Noel is the creator of the best-selling 70 Day Life Makeover Program for Women .. The Change Your Life Challenge. http://www.changeyourlifechallenge.com
This program has helped thousands of women take control of their home, finances, relationships, clutter, time-managmenet and more.

She is the author of 19 books and maintains three free newsletters. The Daily Rush is devoted to quick and easy recipes; Good Morning! is a daily newsletter to get your day off to a great start and The Challenge Weekly offers a personal challenge for self-improvement each week. To sign up for these free newsletters please visit http://www.changeyourlifechallenge.com/news.htm

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