Time Management Training - Do You Know How You're Spending Your Time Now?
Time management training helps you to see how you use your time now. If you’re like most people you really don’t know how you are spending your time now. You let time slip away and at the end of the day you just don’t know where it went.
Taking one week and tracking how you really spend your time is an eye opening time management training technique. Most people find it very hard to do this, but they also find great value in the exercise. Track your time each day in 30 minute increments just noting how you are spending your time each interval. You have to do this as you go. Trying to write down how you spent each interval at the end of the day just won’t work. It doesn’t even work waiting a few hours. You simply won’t be able to recall how you really spent that time.
The value of this time management training technique comes from the big picture. At the end of the week group your activities into big categories like: phone calls, appointments, projects, etc. Then total up how much time was spent in each category. Most people are shocked to learn how much of their time is literally wasted on unimportant things.
The power of this time management training technique comes for taking what you know to create what you want. Now that you know how you are spending your time currently you can change your future by planning how you will use your time. Currently you plan your time for how things are and as long as you continue to do that things will remain unchanged for you. If you want to use your time differently you have to start by planning how you want to use your time actually making appointments or blocking out time in your calendar and then stick as closely to your plan as possible.
You can’t ever change the unexpected, but you can change how you respond to the unexpected. With your newly laid plans for how you will spend your time you are prepared to deal with the unexpected. When the unexpected happens, and it will, you can look at your calendar evaluate the importance of the unexpected and determine either when you will schedule it in or if it truly has to be dealt with now how you will rearrange your calendar to compensate.
Taking one week and tracking how you really spend your time is an eye opening time management training technique. Most people find it very hard to do this, but they also find great value in the exercise. Track your time each day in 30 minute increments just noting how you are spending your time each interval. You have to do this as you go. Trying to write down how you spent each interval at the end of the day just won’t work. It doesn’t even work waiting a few hours. You simply won’t be able to recall how you really spent that time.
The value of this time management training technique comes from the big picture. At the end of the week group your activities into big categories like: phone calls, appointments, projects, etc. Then total up how much time was spent in each category. Most people are shocked to learn how much of their time is literally wasted on unimportant things.
The power of this time management training technique comes for taking what you know to create what you want. Now that you know how you are spending your time currently you can change your future by planning how you will use your time. Currently you plan your time for how things are and as long as you continue to do that things will remain unchanged for you. If you want to use your time differently you have to start by planning how you want to use your time actually making appointments or blocking out time in your calendar and then stick as closely to your plan as possible.
You can’t ever change the unexpected, but you can change how you respond to the unexpected. With your newly laid plans for how you will spend your time you are prepared to deal with the unexpected. When the unexpected happens, and it will, you can look at your calendar evaluate the importance of the unexpected and determine either when you will schedule it in or if it truly has to be dealt with now how you will rearrange your calendar to compensate.