Stress? It’s all about Time Management skills To save time, invest in your future time now.

Beat Work Overload; Increase Your Effectiveness; Achieve Much More...

Personal time management skills are essential skills for effective people. People who use these techniques routinely are the highest achievers in all walks of life, from business to sport to public service. If you use these skills well, then you will be able to function exceptionally well, even under intense pressure.

What's more, as you master these skills, you'll find that you take control of your workload, and say goodbye to the often intense stress of work overload.

At the heart of time management is an important shift in focus: Concentrate on results, not on being busy. Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little, because they're not concentrating their effort on the things that matter the most.

Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. This set encompass a wide scope of activities, and these include planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. Initially time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities also. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools and techniques.

The time would neither be faster nor slower. The clock would move at the same speed, one second at a time. This has never changed and will never change!. What matters is how well YOU keep pace with this speed! 24 hours is what all have in common. Yet some achieve SO MUCH in this time and some achieve NOTHING.

It does not matter how hard You work or how much Time You spend working, but what matters is HOW much You achieve in a given period of time.

The TIME MANAGEMENT is all about PRODUCTIVITY

Get “SMART” with TIME

SMART is Simple Measures that Ascertain Resourceful usage of Time

Some of the Measures to get SMART with Time

1.?Goal Setting

2.?Prioritization

3.?Managing Interruptions

4.?Procrastination

5.?Scheduling

6.?Finding an Extra Hour

1.?Goal Setting

To start managing time effectively, we need to set goals. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know, the areas that you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course. When we know what the goals are, we can then figure out what exactly needs to be done, in what order. Without proper goal setting, we will waste our time away on a confusion of conflicting priorities.

People tend to neglect goal setting because it requires time and effort. What they fail to consider is that a little time and effort put in now, saves an enormous amount of time, effort and frustration in the future.

Set Rational specific short term goals – short term could be a week, a day or even an hour. Set Directional goals – general direction for long term –say “in one year I should be the Manager/Toper here”.

Once the goals are set, GO for it. Deviate only if the basic circumstances changes. Prioritize your tasks based on the goals Set apart some time everyday for Your Directional Goal (Long term) also.

Goals should Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective goals:

??State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively – 'Execute this technique well' is a much better goal than 'Don't make this stupid mistake.'

??Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.

??Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.

??Write goals down: This crystallizes them and gives them more force.

??Keep operational goals small: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Derive today's goals from larger ones.

??Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. Alternatively you may set goals that are too high, because you may not appreciate either the obstacles in the way or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.

?2.?Prioritization

Prioritizing what needs to be done is especially important. Without it, you may work very hard, but you won’t be achieving the results you desire because what you are working on is not of strategic importance.

Most people have a “to-do” list of some sort. The problem with many of these lists is they are just a collection of things that need to get done. There is no reason to the list and, because of this, the work they do is just as unstructured. So how do you work on To-Do List tasks – top down, bottom up, easiest to hardest?

To work efficiently you need to work on the most important, highest value tasks. This way you won’t get caught scrambling to get something critical done as the deadline approaches. Some important things to remember while prioritizing the tasks:

·??????The 80:20 Rule

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist who in 1906, observed that 20% of the people in Italy owned 80% of the country's wealth. Over a period of time this observation became to known as the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 Rule. This theory is applied all over the world by multi-national companies as well as much smaller firms. Broadly speaking 80% of all results come from 20% of all efforts. So if you identify which 20% is the most important, complete those and you can't help but be more effective and successful.

The above principle was equally applied to Time Management also where 80% of the results come from 20% of our time spent and 20% results come from 80% of our time spent. But there lies the catch – how to identify these 80% or 20%? For that effective 20%, those not so effective 80% are necessary.

What we should be doing is to allocate 80% of our time in routine activities and rest 20% in something for our future activities. Future activity may be of tomorrow, next week, next month or for even next year. Today’s future activity is tomorrow’s routine activity.

Once this allocation of 80% of time for routine activities and rest for future activities is decided, what we need to do is to take review of our daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly activities and wherever possible, we need to improvise our routine activity.

Time is never short or in excess but your success depends on the activities in which you spend your time in. It’s time for us to properly divide some of our time for immediate tasks at hand and some of our time for the future.

·??????Activity Logs

How long do you spend each day on unimportant things; Things that don't really contribute to your success at work? Do you KNOW how much time you've spent reading junk mail, talking to colleagues, watching TV, having tea and eating lunch? And how often have you thought, "I could achieve so much more if I just had another half hour each day."

Activity logs help you to analyze how you actually spend your time. The first time you use an activity log you may be shocked to see the amount of time that you waste! Memory is a very poor guide when it comes to this, as it can be too easy to forget time spent on non-core tasks.

Once you have logged your time for a few days, analyze your daily activity log. You may be alarmed to see the amount of time you spend doing low value jobs!

You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of this can depend on the rest breaks you take, the times and amounts you eat, and quality of your nutrition. The activity log gives you some basis for experimenting with these variables.

Your analysis should help you to free up extra time in your day by applying one of the following actions to most activities:

??Schedule your most challenging tasks for the times of day when your energy is highest. That way your work will be better and it should take you less time.

??Try to minimize the number of times a day you switch between types of task. For example, read and reply to e-mails in blocks once in the morning and once in the afternoon only.

??Reduce the amount of time spent on personal activities such as coffee breaks, lunch hour etc.

·??????To-Do Lists

Prioritizing what needs to be done is especially important. Without it, you may work very hard, but you won’t be achieving the results you desire because what you are working on is not of strategic importance.

Most people have a “to-do” list of some sort. The problem with many of these lists is they are just a collection of things that need to get done. There is no rhyme or reason to the list and, because of this, the work they do is just as unstructured. So how do you work on To-Do List tasks – top down, bottom up, easiest to hardest?

To work efficiently you need to work on the most important, highest value tasks. This way you won’t get caught scrambling to get something critical done as the deadline approaches.

A to-do list is a standard tool in time management. It usually is a flat list of tasks that a person needs to complete. To increase the efficiency of the ordinary to-do list, prioritize the tasks in four different categories:

important and urgent,

important and not urgent,

not important and urgent,

not important and not urgent.

Effective time management is learning to say No to tasks in categories 3 and 4 to make more time for tasks in categories 1 and 2. Freeing yourself from doing the unimportant tasks leaves more time to focus on the important matters. Hence PRIORITISE your tasks and LEARN to SAY NO to certain tasks But if You still need To-Do those under cat 3&4, then set some time apart everyday To-Do such things (say evening 5 to 5.30?) Prioritise even those cat 3&4 jobs before doing it.

3.?Managing Interruptions

Having a plan and knowing how to prioritize it is one thing. The next issue is knowing what to do to minimize the interruptions you face during your day. It is widely recognized that leaders get very little uninterrupted time to work on their priority tasks. There will be a whole host of events that crop up unexpectedly. Some do need to be dealt with immediately, but others need to be managed.

Everyday interruptions at work can be a key barrier to managing your time effectively and, ultimately, a barrier to your success.

Think back to your workday yesterday and consider for a minute the many interruptions that occurred. They may have been phone calls, emails, silly time wasting conversations, colleagues/friends stopping by your office/home, or anything else that unexpectedly demanded your attention and, in doing so, distracted you from the task at-hand.

Because your day only has so many hours in it, a handful of even the smallest interruptions can rob you of the time you need to achieve your goals and be successful in your work and life.

More than this, they can break your focus, meaning that you have to spend time re-engaging with the thought processes needed to successfully complete complex works.

The key to controlling interruptions is to know what they are and whether they are necessary, and to plan for them in your daily schedule when they truly need your attention.

1. We are better at giving advice to others than to ourselves. You will come up with just the right answer to move through your own procrastination if you think of it in terms of what you might tell someone else.
2. Estimate the time for a task and double it to accommodate interruptions. If you finish earlier than you estimated, it will fell like a bonus and a breather.
3. Schedule cooperative time among others.
4. Use another office/study room, library or somewhere other than your normal room to work uninterrupted.
5. Write yourself a note about where you left off for easier re-entry when you come back to something. The time you take writing the note will often be less than reading back into where you left off.
6. Work earlier or later than others in your work hours to minimize interruption. The adjustment might cause minor inconvenience.

4.?Procrastination

“I’ll do it later” / “I’ll get to it later” has led to the downfall of many good persons. After too many “laters” the work loads is up so high that any task seems impossible. Procrastination is as tempting as it is deadly. The best way to beat it is to recognize that you do indeed procrastinate. Then you need to figure out why? Perhaps you are afraid of failing? (I had even noticed that some people procrastinate because they are actually afraid of success!)

Once you know why you procrastinate then you can plan to get out of the habit. Reward yourself for getting jobs done, and remind yourself regularly of the horrible consequences of not doing those boring tasks! You first need to make sure you know your priorities. Putting off an unimportant task isn't procrastination, it's probably good prioritization.

5.?Scheduling

Much of time management comes down to effective scheduling of your time. When you know what your goals and priorities are, you then need to know how to go about creating a schedule that keeps you on track, and protects you from stress.

This means understanding the factors that affect the time you have available for work. You not only have to schedule priority tasks, you have to leave room for interruptions, and contingency time for those unexpected events that otherwise wreak chaos with your schedule. By creating a robust schedule that reflects your priorities and well as supports your personal goals, you have a winning combination: One that will allow you to control your time and keep your life in balance. To learn specific scheduling skills, see our articles onPickle Jar Theory and Scheduling Skills.

Scheduling is the process by which you plan your use of time. By scheduling effectively, you can reduce stress and maximize your effectiveness. Scheduling is best done on a regular basis, for example at the start of every week. Before you can schedule efficiently, you need an effective scheduling system. This can be a diary, calendar, paper-based organizer, PDA or a software package like MS Outlook. The best solution depends entirely on your circumstances. Personally I use MS-Outlook which can synchronize with my Mobile.

Go through the following steps in preparing your schedule:

• Start by identifying the time you want to make available for your work. This will depend on the design of your job / class that you study and on your personal goals in life.
• Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.
• For example, if you manage people, then you must make time available for coaching, supervision, and dealing with issues that arise. Similarly, you must allow time to communicate with your boss and key people around you. (While people may let you get away with 'neglecting them' in the short-term, your best time management efforts will surely be derailed if you do not set aside time for those who are important in your life.)
• Review your To-Do List, and schedule in the high-priority, urgent activities, as well as the essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated and cannot be avoided.
• Next, block in appropriate contingency time. You will learn how much of this you need by experience. Normally, the more unpredictable your job, the more contingency time you need. The reality of many people's work is of constant interruption: Studies show some managers getting an average of as little as six minutes uninterrupted work done at a time. Obviously, you cannot tell when interruptions will occur. However, by leaving space in your schedule, you give yourself the flexibility to rearrange your schedule to react effectively to urgent issues.
• What you now have left is your "discretionary time": the time available to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals. Review your Prioritized To-Do List and personal goals, evaluate the time needed to achieve these actions, and schedule them in.

If you have little or no discretionary time left by the time you reach step five, then revisit the assumptions you have made in steps one to four.

6.?Finding an Extra Hour

Finding that EXTRA hour for improvement is the next most important task. For improvement, may be, You would need To-Do some Part time learning.?Here are a few simple steps to find that extra hour for all these.

Early or Late – Get up an hour earlier than usual and / or Go to sleep an hour later than usual. Difficult task of course, but necessary in today’s World

Delegate and Distribute – Another way of gaining little extra time – Of course easier said than done – but needs to be done ruthlessly.

Take quick decisions – Do not keep pondering over an issue. A timely decision, even if it is not the best one, would provide far better output than a Wonderful decision taken after the time is past!

No to some Tasks – Is it my problem? – Most of us have this habit – of getting into matters that do not concern us – mostly just because the Senior/Superiors has mentioned it and we do not know how to say NO politely. In such matters remember solving the whole world’s problems is not your job and you will never be able to do it. Those who try to get into everything to stay in the limelight or to be the centre of attraction should realize that they would do far more Good to Themselves and the Organization by doing one thing GOOD rather than messing up several tasks simultaneously.

Finding that extra hour will always be a challenge, but for a desiring soul that extra hour will always be present somewhere. It is always present somewhere – for a desiring soul, it is just about keeping the Faith and preserving! So Go Forward and Make It Happen.?

I wrote this in 2012, while serving as the Coordinator, Department of Animation, St. Albert's College (Autonomous)