Improving your time management is not as hard as you may figure out, and it may help you build a stronger foundation for your success. However, this is a highly personal task in which there is no one better than you to design an action plan to achieve your goals. Personal time management is based on prioritization, and what works for one person may be useless to someone else, and following your heart to see what happens is not planning anyway.

People not familiar with setting goals may find time management software helpful to set priorities and manage their time, to meet deadlines. If you are concerned about time management, there are many software options to choose from ranging from to do list software to organizer software. Personal time management is easier when you have installed the right software package on your PC instead of a paper time management system.

Time management software allows you to organize the activities most meaningful for you on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. If this is your first experience managing your time, do not be afraid and simply make notes of those things you want to do on a particular day, whether an idea, plan, commitment or pending task. Over time, you will effectively organize your daily actions.

In fact, organizer software is the best fit when it comes to efficiency in time management, because you can concentrate on two or more things at once, if not flitting back and forth from one thing to another. On the other hand, to do list software is easier to learn, operate and use for common tasks in your daily life, such as shopping lists, attendance lists, personal things, etc.

Personal time management is as individual as you are, so make sure to review the features of the different time management software carefully. Time management applications featuring complicated functions that you will probably never use, will only serve to waste time, not to save it. Once the right software has been chosen, it is matter of disciplining yourself with its consistent use.

Depending on your activities and lifestyle, you may consider getting time management software for your personal digital assistant (PDA), which allows you to synchronize the information saved on your home or office's PC, with the PDA for efficient access to your time management plan from any location when you are working on the run.

A personal digital assistant is small in size and cheaper than a laptop or any other portable computer device. Furthermore, these small devices come with to do list software or organizer software (depending on their amount of memory), making it smoother to development your skills in personal time management.

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Part of the American Dream is the opportunity to create your own wealth and destiny. As a business owner, you have the chance to not only establish your own business, but to create an identity that is consistent with your goals and vision. One of the major challenges that new business owners have in the early stages is wearing the many hats. Operating a successful business often requires more time and resources than initially anticipated.

Time management plays a key role in handling the daily grind of running your own operation. Setting daily goals is an essential part of building a results-oriented routine for your business day. How does your day begin? Do you start early and end late? Do you accomplish enough during your business day? Or is every day a challenge?

Here are some tips to conquer time management:

- Do you procrastinate? Procrastination can leave you overwhelmed and create an entire new set of business problems. Get to the root of your procrastination and eliminate it!

- Make a list of priorities for the day and stick to it. Simpler than it sounds, keeping a to-do list will hold you accountable for your day and keep you moving forward.

- How do you spend your time? Focusing on a group of unimportant tasks while the important ones fall by the wayside? Wasting business resources and time on smaller tasks that could be outsourced to someone else? Get a handle on what is important and you will experience a more productive workday.

- Don't let the pressure get to you. Sometimes it feels like we have to perform far beyond our limitations as a small business owner. Stress can attack your day and the performance of your business. So take a moment to assess the most important goals for the day and get back on target!

You can read a ton of articles about time management, and most of the will say the same things.

Make lists.

Multi-task, if you can.

Get things accomplished during down time.

Bring a book to read when you're stuck in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

All good stuff, but few gurus speak about the glories in being ON TIME. To me this is the Father of All Time Management Doctrines.

If you can't get yourself to show up on time, you're just out of control.

Speaking of control, which this boss exerted with an iron fist, legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi insisted his players do everything on time, even showing up to group meals right on the dot.

Lombardi was the star of a brief training video that I was shown at my leasing job, along with the rest of the sales team. He devised what he called, "Lombardi Time," which among other pointers urges us to arrive at all appointments a full fifteen minutes EARLY.

To him, that is the mark of a professional. That is businesslike.

But it took me a few years after that film to truly get the message. I was part of an elite training team dispatched to teach senior level U.S. Navy managers how to manage better. The Navy simply would not tolerate tardiness in any form.

I learned that lesson so deeply that I'd do nearly anything to keep an appointment or arrive at a distant training locale, on time. Once, when a hurricane prevented me from getting to Ft. Myers, Florida one evening, I hired a taxi to drive during the wee hours across Alligator Alley, getting to my hotel a mere hour before my program was to start.

That was plenty of time to shave and shower and be at my post right on the money.

There are a few pockets of resistance against being punctual. One of them is in college teaching, where some profs feel it is their prerogative to assert their command by arriving in class 10 or 15 minutes late.

Though I succumbed to that temptation myself, the Navy ripped that habit out of my playbook.

As I recall, Lombardi also coached at Army. Maybe they drilled the same way.

Want to me a better manager or just a better time manager? Set your watch fifteen minutes ahead.

Be ON TIME, or even early. It's the way of winners.

Need a great executive performance coach? Contact the author.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, sales, customer service, and negotiation consultant, and attorney. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is also the best-selling author of 12 books, more than 1,000 articles and several popular audio and video programs. His seminars are sponsored internationally and he teaches at more than 40 university extension programs, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. Gary's sales, management and consulting experience is combined with impressive academic credentials: A Ph.D. from USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies.

Have you ever worked on something that you were absolutely possessed about? You weren't working you were obsessed. Time flew by, there were no hiccups and inspiration was in everything you did. You were performing at a level of high quality and you produced a lot. You were in a zone of contentment and clarity.

What you were experiencing was your brilliance. The end and the path were clear. For most people these moments are rare. But that not need be the case.

We have a tendency to think in tasks rather than outcomes. We clutter our lives on goals rather than the creating experiences. Then we wonder why we are stressed

We lust after achievement instead of filling our lives with true passion. Passion is filling, lust is exhausting. We tend to seek pride instead of satisfaction of fulfillment. Pride is something we feel internally. Satisfaction is what we experience when we have made an impact.

Time is actually a gift. How much of it we have is unknown. What if you only have today? How would you use it? Would you look at the people in your life differently? What impact would you make today? How would you treat your co-worker, family member, sibling, spouse, or child? Would you micro manage the time?

Time management is a focus on scheduling tasks. Those that need to get done with all the conflicting obligations we face when we are living someone else's agenda. When you allow your purpose to live and your brilliance to breath, time disintegrates. The outcome is lasting and the result is larger than life.

If you shift your thinking to how you can become a creator instead of a tasker then you will begin to see time differently. Before you sit down to make a list of chores, (Tasks) think about how the outcome feels to you. Imagine how the results can positively change someone else's life.

Maybe it's time to get out of the slumber of your life. Try to remember when you were a kid and you absolutely loved today. Like when things really tasted great. When things got messy it was OK. As someone asked if you wanted to try something and you said sure. That trying was more important than being right. What about those days that you learned something new and that was great?

As you begin to plan awaken all your senses; the light, colors, size, distance, sounds, frequency, amplitude, smells, pungent, sweet, touch, hard, soft, of the place close or far, in the mountains or at sea level. The more real you make something before you do it the easier it is to live it.

As a kid, we pretended and that pretending became our reality. You can do the same thing with your planning. Can you recall where in your body those feelings of pretending originated? Here is a suggestion:

To really make it more real, try to move your thoughts from your head into your torso. Take a deep breath saying to yourself, "I am now entering the calm clear space!" exhale and strengthen the experience from a calm clear perspective. Repeat your breathing a few times repeating the expression. You will sense clutter disappearing.

When you actually begin the experience keep redirecting your thoughts back to this centered calm space. Whenever you feel your thoughts inside your head, take a breath and move them back to your torso.

Try this right now. On your next activity. Remember, it's like shampooing; Apply, experience, and repeat. Be calm, be centered, be Brilliant. Keep returning your attention back to your centered space. That's what you did as a kid. That's when you were most brilliant. It's when you were on purpose the most. It was the moments that time flew.

That was the zone. Why not relive it today and be complete in this moment and have fun. Invite others to join you. You might simply get a lot more done without the worries of what must be done.

Instead of working on tasks on a ToDo list you are experiencing the brilliance of the people around you. I wonder if you would accept, that is a last day worth living. Making it a life will generate memories to fill a universe.

Time is the most valuable resource that every human being has. There is no way you can recover the lost of time. Therefore, we need to identify any time wastage before it is too late.

1. Watching television

According to statistics, the average American spends more than 4 hours a day watching television. This is a quarter of our day after minus off 8 hours of our sleeping time. It is good if we practice responsible moderation but sadly, most of us often watch whatever programs shown on television.

2. Internet surfing and social networking.

Recently, Facebook was been labeled a $5b waste of time. Internet surfing can be addictive and waste of time when we do not stay focus on what we want but simply follow all the links that are attracted to us.

3. Inability to Say No

Often, we will receive invitation from friends to join social functions, meeting, gathering or request for help on something or charities. Socializing is part and parcel of life and doing good deeds is commendable but we have to control and balance them with our life.

4. Unimportant Reading

Today, there are ton of reading materials (physical or soft copies downloadable from internet) available for reading. Instead of spending our time on quality and relevant books, majority of people spend their time on newspapers and magazines, which contain a lot of unimportant news, stories and advertisement.

5. Socializing and Chat-Chat

It is true socializing and chatting are part of our socialize life but without proper plan and control, it can chew up our personal time.

6. Indecision

The cause of indecision is fear of making mistake which lead to waste a lot of time in analyze the available information. The will be no result or output till we have taken our action. In summary, it is paralysis by analysis.

7. Procrastination

We try to delay or avoid a task fearing it will cause a mistake or criticism. A lot of time is been wasted for delaying the task until an action is been taken. "Time and tide wait for no man".

8. Disorganize

When our things are not in organized way, we will waste the time to find an item, recall any meeting or simply interrupt our work schedule. However, re-organize our work have to be done in moderation before it will turn into another time problem, perfectionist.

9. DIY

Some people prefer to Do It Yourself (DIY) type of work. If it is cost effective or it is your hobby, by all mean continue with the DIY, otherwise, it is advisable to outsource or hire other experts to work on it.

10. Do Not Enjoy Our Work

According to John Spalding, we will find time to do what we love to do. Time will be wasted as we may procrastinate when we want to work on the job that we hate to do. Either find a way to make the job interesting or change your job or career, rather than waste your own precious time.

Once you have identified all your time wasters, take immediate action to overcome or minimize them because you may delay the action but time will not.

For any project that we undertake in life, be it a long term or short term, personal or professional venture, setting an outline to achieve our goals is a great idea. Time management makes it that much simpler to work towards your goals. When you have a plan outline, it also saves you when things go wrong. For example, if you are unable to work one or two days due to issues beyond your control, you time management plan can quickly tell you where you need to put in and how much time you need to put in, to make up for the loss. So it keeps a clear idea in the head of how you are right on track and right in control.

A proper plan should contain a break up for your goal achievement over time segments. This ensures that you complete your projects within the time frame you designated for your self.

Here is how time management plans can really help you:

A. It increases the production level. Be it a company or an individual, when you work with the right kind of project management plan, you will find that you suddenly have so much extra time on your hands to work on other issues of production and work accomplishment. This would no doubt increase your efficiency levels to a standard they had never reached before.

B. Time management helps eliminate time wastage. When you do not work within an allotted time frame, you could well tend to take it easy at times. When this happens, you are suddenly faced with the realization that your dead line is near and you have a lot to accomplish yet. This would no doubt affect the quality of the work that you will churn out. When you do work within a plan of time frames for every segment of work, you will see consistency in work quality and minimum wastage of time.

C. Performance levels increase with time management plans. We all have felt the tiresome feelings when we see a mountain of work in front of us. However, when you break down the mountain into little segments to climb every day, you are that much more motivated to accomplish your goals. So do take the help of a good plan to help you get your work down efficiently and in an orderly fashion.

D. You have feelings of accomplishment and a sense of a balanced life when you work with a time management plan. Especially where long term goals are concerned, a little work done in a day to reach your goals gives you a feeling of contentment at the end of the day. It tells you that your life is right on track and gives you the assurance that you will reach your goals if you stick to this plan.

Knowledge management comes with its own challenges, such as identifying information that meet the “valuable” criteria. Not all information can be classified as knowledge, nor can all knowledge be considered valuable. Put simply, the secret is to separate the wheat from the chaff.

People are at the core of what knowledge management is all about. It is directly related to people’s knowledge and how that knowledge can support business and organizational goals. It draws heavily on human creativity, innovation, motivation, intuition, ideas and competence. It is not technology-based, although technology is used to support knowledge management drives.

Knowledge management is very organized and goal-oriented, and has a direct link to the strategic goals of the business. It employs knowledge that is relevant, meaningful and practical. Knowledge management is not static but ongoing, not the least because knowledge keeps changing and needs to be updated, revised and sometimes done away with.

If a business needs an application to create, manage and share business knowledge, or if it needs to manage its business intelligence more efficiently, then knowledge management software may be just the thing for that business. Although knowledge sharing is a relatively old concept, it is only now that it is becoming a formalized business practice. Knowledge management software assists the process of managing and propping up the storehouse of knowledge by accessing human and organizational capital.

Knowledge management software uses an organization’s intellectual capital to present an effective way to excavate, manage and share these resources. Knowledge management software also allows for the efficient management of self-service customer support, FAQ management, help desk knowledge foundation, document and project management. This software supports the sharing of the best practices in business, directing educated business decisions, and can also serve as the principal means of internal communication.

Some of the benefits of using knowledge management software include greater employee efficiency and productivity, improved customer satisfaction, competitive advantages and pioneering self-service giving rise to increased satisfaction. Knowledge management software is easily available. Therefore, it is always good to identify your requirements and install a trial version before settling for the final software solution.

Managing one's assets to maximize returns is one of the popular options that a lot of companies turn to for optimum company growth. There are a number of asset management services available for individuals and companies alike, which allows clients to choose from among these services the one that would best fit their needs and goals. Asset management services may also be customized in such a way that the company's objectives and terms of use are followed for even added efficiency.

The services that asset management firms or asset management advisors vary depending on their client's needs. Although these services basically have the same premise, that is to manage the asset or the money of companies and individuals which can be done in several ways. Retirees who turn to asset management services usually employ asset management advisors or firm to manage their retirement plan for day-to-day management, living expenses, even health care, and may even include travel options as well. Availing asset management services would be a good option for retirees who seek to stretch their retirement fund without having to pool their finances with other investors the way that mutual funds do.

Asset management services also include account services that provide check-writing opportunities, credit or debit cards and automatic transfers from one account to the other. The latter is of great convenience between companies, their suppliers and their customers.

There are also asset management services that manage one's money through stocks, bonds and their cash equivalents. These services are more complex than the other services since expertise and much knowledge is needed by asset management advisors in the fields of asset management and the stock markets. These services are subject to pre-set objectives made clear by the clients who are also made aware of the different investment styles that may be used to manage their assets for optimization.

You may be wondering to yourself, 'But, I am an employee! How can I choose to only do work that is of high value? Who am I going to delegate it to? Many of the low value work like checking emails & paperwork are still necessary, they must be done!'

Yes, if you are currently employed in a job, you must still do everything yourself initially. However, start focusing on doing all the high value activities first. Spend at least 70% of your total workday on these activities. Then, use non-work hours to clear most of the 30% low value stuff! The hours of 9 am - 6 pm are the critical times when your actions must be generating high profits, like developing new businesses, following up with clients, ensuring product quality, strategizing growth in meetings and so on. Doing paperwork, organizing your files, surfing to research materials and checking emails should be done after office hours.

Once you have managed to fully optimize your time, you must then take the next step. You must ask for an assistant so you can delegate all your low value activities to this person and fully concentrate your time on high value activities. Remember, if you do not already have an assistant or one is not provided for you, be proactive, and ask for one!

Why would your boss want to get you an assistant and increase the company's monthly expenses? Again, if you can show that by investing in an assistant for you at $3,000, you can be freed to generate an additional $15,000-$30,000 in value, it will be an obvious decision to do so.

A Lesson that My Staff Taught Me

Another example I can give you is from my own advertising agency. I have got a number of account managers and directors. Some of them generate gross profits of over $45, 0000 a month, while others manage only about $22,000. Obviously I pay the $45,000 person double what I pay the other regardless of age or qualifications.

When I observed how they worked, it was obvious why this was happening. The $45,000 account manager spent 80% of the time, out of the office making presentations to secure new clients and visiting existing clients to get more advertising business. He would then spend 20% of his time on office admin like checking the spelling, grammar of ad copy & coordinating workflow with the creative and media departments. On the other hand, the $22,000 manager was spending most of the time in the office on the low value detail work and hardly any time strategizing on new campaigns or on business development.

When I first started out in business, I was not aware of the need to maximize the value of time until one of my staff, an accounts manager, taught it to me! This accounts manager came up to me and asked for a secretary. At first, I thought that she was just being lazy and wanted to do less work. It appeared to be an unnecessary cost, so I did not approve it.

However, my accounts manager did not stop there. She knew that if she proved to me how it would be a great investment, I would approve. She was paid $4,000 per month at the time and she had to do everything that was necessary to manage the client's advertising account. She told me that she was already working full eleven-hour days and that she just could not take on more clients and increases her gross profits from the $35,000 she managed every month. But if I could get her a secretary for around $1,800 a month, she would have 40% of her time freed to bring in and manage additional clients and easily add another $20,000 in monthly profits. Once I saw the math, I gave the go-ahead!

Spend your time on high value activities where you will bring in the most profit and your income will rise as a result of the extra value you can now create. Focus on always creating more and more value!

Now you may be saying to me, 'I am already working eighteen-hour days! How much harder can I possibly work?' Or if you are working for somebody else you may be thinking, 'This does not apply to me. As an employee, my hours of employment are fixed from 9am to 6pm. I do not get paid more for working longer hours.'

When I talk about increasing the time you spend creating value, I do not necessarily mean that you must work longer hours. Rather, you must spend more of your time only on activities that create the greatest value that generate the most profits for your company.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or an employee, you will have a list of things that you must do everyday as part of your responsibility. You will find that not all the things you do create the same amount of value.

There are some activities that create high value while some activities are low in value. In fact, if you find yourself doing low value items throughout the day, I have to say that you are not adding more value than you can to your business or company you work for.

I'm not saying that these things are not important or that you can ignore them. Because I know that there are some emails, telephone calls or planning that is also critical to adding value.

What I'm saying is that instead of you spending most of your time doing all these low value activities, what you should do is to outsource these low value items to someone else. Why else do you think a CEO has a personal assistant?

So that he can free up his time he otherwise would have spent checking his emails and answering phone calls and instead use the time he has everyday to do the things that will lead the company to higher growth and profit. That is where he adds the most value.

In fact, I have discovered that most average income earners spend only about 20% of their workday doing truly high value added activities while they spend most of their time, about 80%, on low value activities like checking email, attending unproductive meetings, chit chatting, complaining, waiting, finding lost items, stuff that does not generate profits or help clients meet their goals.

High-income earners are the opposite. They tend to spend 80% of their time on high value added activities like business development, closing sales, innovating new revenue streams, market strategizing, following up with prospects, strategizing on how to improve productivity, managing projects, getting feedback from clients, stuff that leads to high customer satisfaction and higher profits!