Okay I'll admit it. In my pursuit to get more done, save time, be more efficient and all of that, I've made horrible mistakes when it comes to effective time management. But really, who hasn't? Life is for living and living sometimes involves making mistakes. Personal development is about recognizing those mistakes and improving upon them.

A more empowering way of looking at this is that mistakes really aren't mistakes at all. As long as you are willing to learn, what some people might call mistakes are really just confirmations of what not to do in the future. Laboratory workers at Edison's lab tried nearly 10,000 combinations of materials to create a filament for the modern-day light bulb. When interviewed, Thomas Edison did not view these iterations as mistakes. Instead he viewed it as important scientific data that led to a high quality product.

Some of the homerun kings, in the sport of baseball, are also the strikeout kings. Some basketball stars have a low percentage of baskets, but they're still the top point earners. By not focusing on individual failures but instead moving forward to better achievements, these sports stars set a great example for perseverance.

What does any of this have to do with time management?

All too often the biggest challenge in getting more done in using the time that we have more wisely comes down to honesty.

Honesty with ourselves.

When I feel like I'm in a slump something that is helpful is to get out a blank day planner sheet and log everything I did during the day in 15-minute increments. Sometimes I'm not proud of myself when I see an hour or two of completely wasted time staring me in the face. But this information is very important because it gives me a realistic look at where I'm spending my time.

With that awareness comes the opportunity for improvement.

Every day I also write in my journal. This gives me an opportunity to reflect on my day. I describe my perception of events and I also painted a picture of how I would've liked to have seen certain events transpire.

To keep a journal, you can write passages as a letter to yourself or as a report to a person that you wish was your mentor; like Albert Einstein. At the end of each entry describe your intent for your next day or the rest of the week.

Time management is an interesting phrase because it implies that we can manage time, but of course we can't. What we really learn is how to manage ourselves. As we strive to become more effective the time we have seems more fruitful. It's because of this learning that I no longer call myself a time management failure.

How many days do you sacrifice to meaningless activities?

I say sacrifice, because when you let any day go by without nurturing and spending time furthering your dream, you are killing previous progress. Let me say that again, you are killing previous progress. You may complain that others are holding you back, because you don't make enough or are not appreciated enough or loved enough, or whatever your preferred excuse is, but the truth is that the killer of your dream lives within your home.

When you do not love and honor and respect your dream everyday, you are the murderer that is killing it while it sleeps. Your dream is like a baby in that it needs to be nourished, appreciated, loved, and tended to. You must give your dream constant daily attention. Like a baby, if you do not spend time with your dream everyday, it will fail to thrive, and if you ignore it long enough, it may die. Life is already filled with too many doubters, haters, and challenges that would kill your dream; you cannot allow yourself to be part of the problem.

Today is the day you need to make a decision; you need to snap out of the deadly routine that is your life, because your dream is a matter of life and death. Your day to day actions either create life or reap death; your time is either spent constructively or it is squandered destructively.

Let me ask you again... Are you an everyday achiever?

Why not?

Is your dream not big enough?

Is it not important enough?

Do you have a dream or do you have a wish?

No one is guaranteed the next breath, let alone another day, so what part of you thinks that it is ok to let a day go without spending time with your dream? You have got to love your dream. You have got to touch your dream. You have got to see your dream. Your connection to your dream is only as strong as the last action you took to move it forward, and if action is not taken everyday, then you don't want it enough.

I don't care how busy you are. I don't care how much you work. If you can't make 15 minutes for your dream a day, then you are not worthy of your dream. It probably is not your dream; it is just something you think you should do or something you think it would be neat to do. Your dream is something you have to be willing to die striving to achieve, because you might.

Your life could end at any time and aside from loving other people, pursuing your dream will be the greatest work you will ever do. Your life is like currency that must be used or lost each day. Are you investing your time to make your dream come true, or are you using your time doing activities that will keep you where you are.

Each day you have less life within you, so each day we are sacrificing our lives to what we do. Is your dream worth dedicating your life to? If you said yes, then prove it. Every day, you must do a least one thing to advance your dream. I you are really passionate, you must do several things.

This moment is your gut check; do you have a dream or just a really pretty story to tell yourself and others?

Someday is not listed on my calendar, and tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Your power resides in today, which is the one day you don't need a calendar for because you are living it right now. So let me ask you one last time... Are you everyday achiever? (Hint... if your dream matters, the answer must be yes)

If you can still say no, then you just don't want it bad enough.

Before we begin, I must emphasize the need to remember that we're all individuals. We do not all work - or even learn - in the same way. Some of us, for example, are visual in style: we learn by seeing. Some people, on the other hand, are auditory in style, learning and working best through hearing. And still others are tactile by nature: they need the sense of touch to fully absorb what they need to know.

We're different in other ways, as well. Some of us seem to have been born neat. Or childhood experiences, or being born a Virgo, or some other mysterious series of events made us so. Our childhood bedrooms were the pride of our lucky parents, our handwriting was (and remains) neat and tidy, and our sock drawers are perfectly arranged.

Others of us are natural clutter magnets, with parents who despaired of getting us to clean our rooms. Today, our desks may vary much resemble the bedrooms of our youth. And some of us are a combination-neat one day and untidy the next, with some parts of our lives elegantly organized and other parts in a jumble.

And some of us are organized in what appears to be a wholly disorganized way. Perhaps you're the kind of person who can pull out a sheet of urgently needed paper from the middle of one of a dozen messy stacks in less time than it might take a more obviously organized person to retrieve it from a file cabinet.

The appearance of disorganization (or organization, for that matter) can be deceiving. As you learned in the preface, this book isn't about imposing a "one-style-fits-all" approach to managing your time. Your individual style should dictate which suggestions and tips you'll find most helpful. You may also find, however, that your style undergoes a slight-or even major-transformation as you adopt some of the suggestions you'll learn here. If you're the sort of person who never meets deadlines-whose library books were (or still are) always late-you'll most likely want to change some elements of your style. If you already manage your time well, you presumably are still open to fine-tuning your approach.

If you find yourself constantly frustrated at the end of the day, with a pile of things that need to be done and wondering why you weren't able to do it, you're not alone. Plenty of people suffer from an inability to make the maximum use of their time, but there is a solution! By implementing these simple time management tips in every area of your life, you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish - and how quickly things will get done - every day.

1) Know what you want - set goals.

Since you can't change time itself, you need to change how you work with time. This can be done by making small personal goals to start with, moving to larger goals as you progress in your time management skills. For example, set a goal to not check your personal email while at work for one week. At the end of the week, evaluate whether you achieved that goal and add another one or try again.

2) Do what you need to - create a plan.

This is a more overarching goal, but something that can be implemented as part of a plan for time management success. For example, your plan for trying these time management tips might be to increase your productivity or to lower your stress levels.

3) Learn about yourself - where are you losing time?

For a week, track what you do every day. Take note of your activities, how long they took, and even the breaks you take for a personal phone call or for lunch. After a week, look at the areas that took up your time, and evaluate where you wasted time that could have been given over to more productive activities.

4) Use the available tools - write it down.

Time management tools are an effective way to give concreteness to your goals and the tasks you need to accomplish. Whether it's through a daytimer or a computer program, physically manage your time by listing the tasks you need to do now and in the future.

5) Keep perspective - prioritize.

Each morning, look at the tasks you need to accomplish and prioritize them. Figure out which ones are urgent and which ones can honestly wait if you don't have time for them. Do the important things first - don't put them off, or you'll be stressed and rushed at the end of the day.

6) Keep moving - create a routine.

If you have an established routine, you'll be more able to complete your goals each day. When crises arise, move with them and deal with them - but don't let them distract you for the rest of the day. Once you've dealt with the problem, get back on task.

7) Don't dawdle - set time limits.

If you only need an hour to check your email, set a timer for an hour until you can get used to that amount of time. A day can be easily wasted on one thing if you let it, so this will ensure that you don't waste extra time surfing around that could be spent on other projects.

8) Ask for help - delegate.

You don't need to do it all yourself - no person is an island! Allow others to carry some of the burden for you, but be willing to help them along the way - that way your creative hand is still in the pot. You need to decide to delegate, and then just ask. What's the worst that could happen, someone would say no? It's not the end of the world.

9) Know yourself - don't waste time waiting.

Whether it's standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for a doctor's appointment, or even if you're sitting in a lobby waiting for a meeting, realize that you don't need to spend that time waiting. With a task list set out, bring something with you at all times that you can work on - a report to read, a notepad, your checkbook, or your PDA to check your email. Keep moving, keep working on those tasks. Don't let a moment go to waste.

10) Be realistic - don't get discouraged.

If you've set realistic goals and you've followed the tips outlined here, there may still be some days that you just can't get everything done. That's okay! There are only 24 hours in a day, and all you can do is work with them and manage yourself. Time doesn't change - you can, and that's really the best thing you can do. Realize that some days will be successes and others may be a little more disappointing. That's life - and tomorrow is a new day!

Time management requires making tough decisions every day. You, alone, must decide what balance to strike between work and home. You maintain this balance with a boundary. It may be strong or it may be flexible. Just make sure it matches your values and that you communicate it clearly.

What happens if you create a strong boundary between work and home? It all depends upon factors like your temperament, your communication skills, and the strength of your support system. Explore these pros and cons:

Pros:

1. If you discourage emergency calls from home or work, your schedule is less likely to be disrupted by others' urgency. Constantly reacting to urgency can lead to rash decisions that undermine your effectiveness and erode others' trust.

2. Encouraging those who are qualified to handle emergencies on their own promotes their confidence and competence.

3. Strong boundaries reduce outside distraction and encourage focus, flow, and personal productivity both at work and at home.

Cons:

1. If demands that arise at home or work can't be successfully delegated, those problems can escalate, consuming even more time.

2. If you can easily transition from work to home activities, maintaining rigid distinctions can discourage creative solutions that enrich both areas of your life.

3. Some people create flexible partnerships in which responsibilities are shared and differing strengths are pooled, to everyone's benefit. Regimenting roles and maintaining strict boundaries deprives both parties from cooperative enterprises.

What's Best for You?

Do you find yourself nodding strongly at one position or another? Take all the time you need to sort out the specifics. What can wait? What needs to be delegated? Answering these questions helps you prioritize and clarify lines of responsibility.

Discuss who does what, and when, with everyone involved. For example, under what circumstances will you take work home? What back-up support will your employer provide if your mother falls and breaks her hip? Are you willing to accept added responsibilities at work if you can fulfill them at home? Who can flex the most in an emergency, you or your partner?

Now is the time to sort this out. You and those close to you benefit by clarifying your roles right now. What conflicts might suddenly arise? Developing contingency plans lessens the possibility of straining relations in the heat of the moment.

Your reward is heightened productivity, improved communications and effective backup plans. Ultimately, your boundaries direct your energies and shape your life. Put these skills to work, and you will automatically maintain more positive control over your time.

So you have heard your manager say, "Time is Money"! You may have noticed he was extremely stressed when the department was toured; he viewed his employee time sheets and took a pencil to project costs. Managing time and money is a necessity for any executive. They often have no viable way to track project overruns before it's too late. This manager may have been able to pencil the total hours worked on a particular project, but it is highly unlikely he would be able to track the effectiveness of an individual employee or access project history in order to quote a job based on the similarity of a project. It is often deemed a waste of time and money to hire an employee to track time management performance and build reports because of the time involved in generating such a report.

Today, the adage, time is money is the synopsis of time management and money; and is in direct correlation with how well time is managed in multiple areas such as employee timesheets, project time tracking, project resources, time projections of project deliverables as well as being able to access time data on any one or multiple employees or projects.

Increasing your company's profitability is about the focal point of numbers and the ability to access those numbers quickly to implement a plan to reduce internal costs while increasing project profitability. Understanding where an employee's time is spent and realigning that time as necessary to "fit" the project at hand is a major step toward greater profitability.

Flexibility is another important key to implementing great time management. The ability to move resources quickly between projects and tasks without effecting existing time entries is critical.

Having an easy to access time management history allows your company to "guesstimate" with accuracy, the man hours of a particular project, what that project will cost in labor and resources, the cost effectiveness of pricing as well as effectively "quoting" based on similar, past projects. Viewing any one or all aspects of such time management numbers and how they correlate to one another gives insight into areas of time management improvement that leads to greater profitability.

Time is money and to make more money it helps to know the "numbers" that make up the time. The timely availability of those numbers is the key to unlocking the vault of profitability. Time management and your company's profit directly correlate to your ability to access the "numbers" on Employee Time Sheets, Project Time Sheets and past Project Histories.

Numbers at your fingertips allow your company to make improvements to procedures that may be necessary or perform time gap analysis on previous projects. Being able to see the big picture of an individual employee in relation to other employees and tracking time effectiveness on a particular project or task is critical. Reducing employee man-hour averages per project is essential to accentuating skills in future projection analysis and for more effective time management strategies. The optimum situation means having the "right tool" to manage your numbers.

It's the number one complaint I get from clients. "I just don't have enough time!" Almost without exception, people use time as their number one excuse for not having the life they want and see themselves as victims of their reality of "no time." The ability to spend time with family, work out, or take a seminar seems nearly impossible in the shadow of sixty-hour workweeks and the demands of the job outside the home. Heaven forbid we should take on a hobby!

Volumes of books have been written on time management and chances are, somewhere along the way of our personal growth and development, we learned a couple of methods to combat the demands of our hectic schedules. Tips on how to manage our time are everywhere to be found, but are those tips really providing us with the answers we need to find the joy we so want in our lives?

There is one truth about time. It's a fixed commodity and one cannot "make more time." It's impossible. There are only 24 hours in a day. Non-negotiable. Sorry, we can't change that. However, one can shift one's experience of time. And while this may seem a rather esoteric response to a very practical issue, there are some very practical "how-to's" that can be explored around this idea.

First, let us examine what some of our very basic beliefs are about time. Are you one that that believes "time is money?" Or do you live by the adage, "there's no time like the present?" Do you resist the "ravages of time?" Or "is time on your side?" What does "in a timely manner" mean to you? These phrases represent just a few commonly held notions around the concept of time. So, our first step in creating freedom in your life in this "time domain" is to first take a look at what cultural and societal beliefs you have either consciously or unconsciously accepted about time. Do you share your company's beliefs about time? Are you always "a day late and a dollar short?" Are your deadlines impossible to meet? Over the next couple of weeks, notice how you experience time and notice what you are saying about time. This means noticing the time you have, and the time you don't have. The time others "make" you waste, or the time you give up to do something you really love to do.

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.

Developing your time management skills requires a certain amount of discipline. And if discipline is something that is new to you, you will have to develop these new skills as you go along. However, most of these skills are quite easy to grasp so you will quickly adopt them and they will become natural for you.

Perhaps the most important of these skills is the ability to plan your day. Of course, you will also need to plan in the longer term, but to be truly effective with your time you need to make the best possible use of the time each day offers.

If you can plan your day well, while being open and willing to deal with any new situations that arise, you will have developed two of the most important time management skills.

The basic ingredient for effective daily planning is a time plan for each and every day. This may seem like a chore, however it need only take about five or ten minutes to do. That's not long, is it? When you do it is up to you. You can do it at night before you go to bed, or first thing in the morning. I find morning the best as your mind is fresh after a good night's sleep.

It is important to make a commitment to planning out your day before it starts. Those 5-10 minutes will give you clarity about your actions for the day so you are more likely to be highly productive, and feel less stress and pressure.

For the most part, your time plan will help you be effective with your time. However, life is unpredictable so situations will arise that you did not account for in your time plan. Learning how to deal with these situations effectively is another important time management skill. When this happens, I encourage you to stay calm and not flustered. Instead, take a minute to ask yourself what the best course of action is, and listen to the answers that come. More often than not you will know what the right course of action is for any given situation.

If you find yourself constantly frustrated at the end of the day, with a pile of things that need to be done and wondering why you weren't able to do it, you're not alone. Plenty of people suffer from an inability to make the maximum use of their time, but there is a solution! By implementing these simple time management tips in every area of your life, you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish - and how quickly things will get done - every day.

1) Know what you want - set goals.

Since you can't change time itself, you need to change how you work with time. This can be done by making small personal goals to start with, moving to larger goals as you progress in your time management skills. For example, set a goal to not check your personal email while at work for one week. At the end of the week, evaluate whether you achieved that goal and add another one or try again.

2) Do what you need to - create a plan.

This is a more overarching goal, but something that can be implemented as part of a plan for time management success. For example, your plan for trying these time management tips might be to increase your productivity or to lower your stress levels.

3) Learn about yourself - where are you losing time?

For a week, track what you do every day. Take note of your activities, how long they took, and even the breaks you take for a personal phone call or for lunch. After a week, look at the areas that took up your time, and evaluate where you wasted time that could have been given over to more productive activities.

4) Use the available tools - write it down.

Time management tools are an effective way to give concreteness to your goals and the tasks you need to accomplish. Whether it's through a daytimer or a computer program, physically manage your time by listing the tasks you need to do now and in the future.

5) Keep perspective - prioritize.

Each morning, look at the tasks you need to accomplish and prioritize them. Figure out which ones are urgent and which ones can honestly wait if you don't have time for them. Do the important things first - don't put them off, or you'll be stressed and rushed at the end of the day.

6) Keep moving - create a routine.

If you have an established routine, you'll be more able to complete your goals each day. When crises arise, move with them and deal with them - but don't let them distract you for the rest of the day. Once you've dealt with the problem, get back on task.

7) Don't dawdle - set time limits.

If you only need an hour to check your email, set a timer for an hour until you can get used to that amount of time. A day can be easily wasted on one thing if you let it, so this will ensure that you don't waste extra time surfing around that could be spent on other projects.

8) Ask for help - delegate.

You don't need to do it all yourself - no person is an island! Allow others to carry some of the burden for you, but be willing to help them along the way - that way your creative hand is still in the pot. You need to decide to delegate, and then just ask. What's the worst that could happen, someone would say no? It's not the end of the world.

9) Know yourself - don't waste time waiting.

Whether it's standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for a doctor's appointment, or even if you're sitting in a lobby waiting for a meeting, realize that you don't need to spend that time waiting. With a task list set out, bring something with you at all times that you can work on - a report to read, a notepad, your checkbook, or your PDA to check your email. Keep moving, keep working on those tasks. Don't let a moment go to waste.

10) Be realistic - don't get discouraged.

If you've set realistic goals and you've followed the tips outlined here, there may still be some days that you just can't get everything done. That's okay! There are only 24 hours in a day, and all you can do is work with them and manage yourself. Time doesn't change - you can, and that's really the best thing you can do. Realize that some days will be successes and others may be a little more disappointing. That's life - and tomorrow is a new day!

One of the keys to getting the most out of your time is developing the ability to ask yourself the right questions at the right time. This need only take a few seconds before you begin any given task. More often than not, you will find these few seconds will present new and better ways of doing what needs to be done.

While it is important to manage your time with calendars, diaries and daily plans, effective time management also requires that you manage yourself.

Before you set about any task, big or small, stop and ask yourself whether this is the best use of your time. Perhaps there are other, better ways of achieving the same result. Or maybe it is a task that you are not particularly suited to that another person could do in half the time, in which case you might want to delegate.

If you do decide to take on the task yourself, ask yourself what is the best way to complete it quickly and easily. It only takes seconds to ask yourself these questions and listen to the answers that come.

As time goes on you will get better at this. One of the most important things to do is to learn how to ask the right questions. In general, your questions should begin with the word 'what'. This focuses your attention and evokes clarity. The remainder of the question needs to ensure that it opens up possibilities, is solution oriented, elicits information and moves you forward.

Here are some examples of powerful 'what' questions that would help you focus better on a particular task and make more effective use of your time:

"What is the most important thing for me to focus on at the moment?"

"What would enable me to use my time more effectively?"

"What isn't getting done that needs doing?" And added to that, "What will it take to get this done?"

"What is the next step for me in this moment?"

These questions can also be used when considering more long-term goals. For example, "What do I want my life to look like in five years?".

Once you have asked any question you need to take a little time, perhaps one minute, to listen to the response that comes to you. You may find that what comes up in your response is clear enough and you now know the best way forward.

However, you may find that your response lacks clarity. It may include all sorts of thoughts and ideas, but no clear way forward. In this case, it can be a good idea to take note of the thoughts that come to you and break the problem down into smaller parts to find the best way forward. You may find there are more specific questions you need to ask.

However, for the smaller tasks in our day-to-day professional and personal lives clear answers usually come quite easily and quickly. So, before you move on to your next task take a little time to consider whether it is the best use of your time and if so, how you can complete it in a time effective manner.

Wasting Your Time is Wasting Your Life:

The following quote sums up the concept I hope to get across: "Life is nothing but a measurement of time - you cannot waste one without losing the other." I hope to ingrain in you the concept that time and life of the same thing - there is no difference! Think about it, let it sink in and feel what that means. Literally, when something or someone wastes a block of your time, they have in effect stolen a chunk of your life that can never be retrieved. Let me share with you another old quote that speaks to this: "What rich man, old and sick, feeble and helpless, would not exchange all the gold in his vault for the blessings you have treated so lightly?" We must protect our time as if we are protecting our life...because, in fact, we are.

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to advance into old age, look back, and say "where did it all go?" I hope that you will learn to exchange each moment of your life only for something of value. As if you were pulling precious coins out of your pocket with the realization that once they are all gone - so are you! Treat your time and you life as precious and protect it from all the stealer's of time.

Fundamentals of Time Management:

One of the keys to effective time management is to discover where the "leaks in your boat" are. Where are we losing time? Where are we putting our energy? To answer these questions we need to get a full assessment of exactly where we are at.

Think of it as a matter of problem-solving. In this case the problem is the loss of time. So let's take a look at how problem-solving works and how it can help us to approach our time management challenges.

Classic problem-solving happens in 5 stages:

1) Awareness - We must be aware that we have a problem. You can't solve a problem that you don't know that you have, so awareness is critical.

2) Understanding - What is the nature and scope of the problem. Get clear about what is happening, why it's happening and how bad it is. Also note what it's costing you and how many areas of your life it impacts (job, home, school, relationships, money, etc.).

3) Knowledge - Study the solution(s) and gain the necessary skills to be effective in solving the problem.

4) Take Action - Commit to taking action daily and makes solving the problem of focus and a priority. Be sure to acquire the needed resources and asked for help as needed.

5) Evaluate and Adjust - Nothing goes perfectly as planned, so be flexible open and ready to adjust. Get committed to outcomes, not methods, and be willing to change your strategies ("Shift Gears") as needed.

Based on this model, the first thing to do is to gain a full awareness and careful assessment of where your time goes and how it is spent. The best way to do this is to use a time tracking sheet. The sheet is broken down into 15 minute increments, because 15 minutes is a valuable chunk of time and just right for tracking activities throughout the day.

Tracking sheets are a powerful tool. People typically can save one to two hours per day by evaluating these sheets and making the necessary corrections. This tracking this tool is central to our work -so don't skip over it, you would be cheating yourself greatly.

How to Use Your Tracking Sheets:

Track your day from beginning to end (where it starts and ends is up to you), write down what you were doing and draw a line down to the next activity to show this time was used on the task. Track your entire day like this, and repeat this process for a three to five day period. This should give you a good idea of how you spend your time, on what tasks, and how long these tasks take you. Tracking for five days should be sufficient, unless your weekly duties vary wildly.

Next, take time to note how productive/critical/profitable each task you engaged in was. This will give you a better sense of how you time is proportioned between Hide/Medium/Low gain tasks. Be brutally honest here, we don't need to defend or justify something we are going to change any ways. Besides, the more "problems" we find - the greater our ultimate gains will be!

Now take some time to self assess how you utilizing your time. What would you change to free up more time or to be more productive with the same amount of time? This step is powerful, eye-opening, and exciting, because it will help you find the blocks of time you seek. It will also give you a great sense of control and power to choose - it's a great feeling! People always feel better when they're in control and enjoying positive gains in their lives - this is what makes time management exciting and fun!

How to Use Your Time Planning Sheet:

First, make yourself several copies of your time tracking sheet to now use as your time planning sheet.

Speaker Jim Rohn says, "Before you start the day, finish it on paper." What this means is that planning the day will create time savings, a focused plan with targets, it will give you a better sense of control and make you aware if you're getting drawn off track (- this may show you the areas that need improvement or are problematic).

I know this may sound strange in an article on saving time, but be sure to schedule in breaks and time to solve unexpected problems. I do this for two reasons: 1) unexpected problems are a fact of life - supplant for the unexpected (*remember this is a reasonable/realistic planning sheet - not a fantasy). 2) scheduling breaks keeps you alert, happy, and sane! You will also likely notice that breaks keep your problem-solving abilities fresh, you're more creative, your memory is better and you make fewer errors. As a secondary benefit, in a pinch, these breaks also allow pad for unexpected problems that take longer than expected. I typically allot for 2 fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for the unexpected daily (I may not always use them - but most days I do, and this keeps my plans on track).

Planning the day like this typically improves peoples efficiency or time savings by 10 to 25% the first time they use it! See how you make out after your first date using the system. You will quickly see that this strategy is worth the small amount of time it takes to implement daily.

Perfectionism, like a mirage, lures you into a desert of false hopes. Your ideal hovers just out of reach while your day slips away. Regain your productivity! Learn to identify the 3 stages of poisonous perfectionism. Then use the following tips to reclaim your power over your time.

Which Set of Symptoms Match Yours the Most Closely?

1. Mild:

" I waste time fine-tuning things that only I will notice. Then I scramble to finish the rest of the day's work. "

Antidote: Develop a mantra that brings fresh perspective to a stuck situation. For example...

"That'll do for now."

"It's good enough."

2. Moderate:

"Anything worth doing is worth doing right."

"I seem to spend twice as much time as others on the final stages of a project, and rarely convince myself it's really complete."

"I make several false starts and never feel satisfied with my finished product."

"I work so intently on some projects that I never get around to other ones."

Antidote: Your challenge is to open up a closed system of endless revisions. In addition to creating a positive mantra, establish a reasonable time frame to complete a project. Set an alarm, if you need to. When the time is up, change activities, no matter what. This becomes easier with practice.

Also, consider broadening your perspective by asking a supportive friend or co-worker to review your work. The more actively you replace your all-or-nothing messages with your chosen mantra, the more you'll welcome feedback that dilutes the harshness of perfectionism.

3. Severe:

"I often lose sleep at night rehearsing the events of the following day."

"I'm so afraid of not being good enough that I become immobilized."

Antidote: Recognize that your excessive standards are padlocking your productivity.

Instead of putting your project under the microscope, examine your expectations of success. Have you developed inflated ideas of what "perfection" can bring? By replacing them with a realistic perspective, you can often deflate ballooning fears of failure.

If perfection remains a deeply ingrained value, substitute ideals of a perfect performance with a vision of perfect balance in your life. The essence of balance is learning when to let go. By participating in a balanced life rather than performing for impossible rewards, you will cultivate new strengths, and take genuine satisfaction in regaining control of your time.

In many ways there is no such thing as time management. When you think about it, time simply exists and there is nothing any of us can do to change it. We have 24 hours in the day and that is all we get.

So if we can't change that how can we manage time? Well, the answer is that we can't. We can only change what we do in the time available to us. So, really, it is much more about managing ourselves than managing time.

On average, you will probably be awake for about 16 hours in every day. When it comes down to it, spending your time productively is about what you choose to do and what you achieve in those 16 hours. And the more you want to get out of this valuable time, the better you have to manage yourself personal.

So, if you are happy with your lot and you feel that the way you spend your time now is perfect for you, then you need read no further. However, if you are reading this article you probably feel like you could make better use of your time.

If so, there are two basic things you need to to achieve effective use of your time. The first is to really know what you want out of life and how you want to spend your time. Once you know this you really have something to aim for.

The second to identify what you need to do to achieve this. Of course, there will be effort, change and discipline needed to put this into action but knowing what needs to be done is a very important start. So, for the first steps towards effective time management, focus on how you really want to spend your time and think about what you will need to do to achieve this.

There are many business owners that not one but many multi-dollar millions or even billions kinds of businesses. Whether you are a business man or not, you at least have 1 person to share your business load and operations.

Setting up a plan of action or a set of goals with time management at work can be a real benefit to the work environment. Work performance, when good, will bring in more profits.

Your staff will get more done in the process of your incorporation time management at work. All employees should work at managing their time more wisely. Setting the scene to do so will improve the quality of your business. With this in mind, you will indirectly free yourself tons of precious time.

When to use employee time management?

The moment you are so engrossed in your company productivity, profits, expenses, overheads, turnover and many more. You should be looking how to use this tip in managing your business.

While monitoring your expenses, you will want to see more value for your money that you are paying your employee(s). If you've ever had such a thought, then it is time to start employee time management training or course. You can't assume that this is something they already know. It's a goal setting strategy that you have to incorporate in their work schedules.

For effective employee time management at work, you need to monitor what your employees do during the day so you can point out what they need to improve upon.

One important way to help your staff

One helpful way for your employees to learn about employee time management is through a training course. Set aside one night for a mandatory meeting and either you or a person who knows about time management can teach them how to effectively use their time.

Through the course of the discussion, the employee can bring up things about the business they feel is a time waster. You can then correct this problem for them, allowing them to free up some of their time to be more productive.

Do you need a time schedule?

Once the problems are fixed that interfere with good time management, it is time to set up a schedule. You or all the employees can talk about how much time they realistically need for a project.

This will help you to do your scheduling better. This will take more of the load off them, and will also show you if you need more than one employee! This will be based on the amount of projects you have, and the amount of time it takes to complete a project you give. One thing you have to remember is you can't change the amount of time in a day.

How to implementing your strategy?

Now that you know when to implement your employee time management strategy, it is time to learn how to implement it.

You have to re-organized when you are dealing with time management. Setting up projects at the same time every day will help gear your employee up for good employee time management.

Once your business starts using employee time management, things will run more smoothly. You will also see more profits coming into the business with good employee time management.

The most important factor in all of this is being realistic with you expectations and with the goals you set for your employees.

Most people tend to sacrifice quality for speed by working at the last moment. Your time management at work routine will help them get in shape for upcoming projects.

As long as everyone is honest about the timing for a project, the employee time management program will work for you. It will show you how well the performance in the business is flowing.

In conclusion.

Good employee time management is essential, as long as you implement it gradually and allow your employees to experience the benefits instead of thrusting it on them.

I hope you find this article both informative and enlightening. Eddy sees the need of having good employee time management strategy. That is why Eddy has started a useful time management tip and resource guide that help you to manage not only your business effectively but also your personal life properly.

Working for myself, from home, means I am responsible for the work I do. It also means I am the one that must create the necessary motivation to achieve all that I plan to achieve on a given day or week. I know how important it is to set goals and create routines, yet I have spent weeks now working on this article. I have really struggled with motivation and I have wasted hours and hours of time not doing what I know I should be doing. Funnily enough, just writing that makes me suddenly conscious that I am never going to get that time back and that if I'd used it well I could be working on something new. So with no more procrastination, let's all learn from the words I am about to write.

What is time management?

Time management is about managing your day affectively so you can achieve all that you want to achieve. It is also about making use of time today, so that you can obtain larger, long term goals whose deadline is sometime in the future. Being able to manage your time well will leave you with a feeling of mastery and accomplishment, knowing that you put your time to good use.

Having busy lives with enormous demands from so many sources means life often feels like a juggling act. People can become overwhelmed with the amount they have to do, making them tired, disgruntled and demotivated. Motivation is important as it can lead to an apathy which can prevent you from doing anything, even though you know there is so much to do.

As such, time management can be seen as making the best use of your time, so you can handle all your responsibilities, without giving in to the misery of procrastination.

Why is it so important?

We all know that time marches on. We can all say "make the best of each day", "live every day as though it's your last", but are such affirmations alone enough? I am aware that time is precious but it took writing the words hours and hours, that jolted me into a frenzy of activity that I was beginning to think had gone forever.

Being able to manage time is important for those people who desperately would like more time to do all the things they want to do. You know who you are -- "I wish there were more hours in a day" is one of your favourite sayings. Yet there are some people that seem to get so much done each day and still find time to relax and enjoy themselves. We all have the same amount of time. As such, good time management is about making the best of the time available to you. This also means using your time to help you attain both your short term and long term goals.

Stress is a huge problem in this society and being in control of your own time is a sure way of helping you manage the stress you face everyday. By knowing what you are doing and when, then having enough time to do each activity will go a long way to helping you towards a life of reduced stress.

Finally, I think it is important to mention the concept of flow. Flow refers to those moments where you are so focused on an activity that all other things are forgotten. If you are managing your time well, you should be engaging in regular flow-inducing activities. This means minimising time wasters that do nothing to enhance your wellbeing or give you that feel-good feeling that comes from engaging in something that absorbs all of your attention. So begin by switching off the television, stop checking your email every five minutes and browsing websites that you are not really that interested in.

Perfectionism, like a mirage, lures you into a desert of false hopes. Your ideal hovers just out of reach while your day slips away. Regain your productivity! Learn to identify the 3 stages of poisonous perfectionism. Then use the following tips to reclaim your power over your time.

Which Set of Symptoms Match Yours the Most Closely?

1. Mild:

" I waste time fine-tuning things that only I will notice. Then I scramble to finish the rest of the day's work. "

Antidote: Develop a mantra that brings fresh perspective to a stuck situation. For example...

"That'll do for now."

"It's good enough."

2. Moderate:

"Anything worth doing is worth doing right."

"I seem to spend twice as much time as others on the final stages of a project, and rarely convince myself it's really complete."

"I make several false starts and never feel satisfied with my finished product."

"I work so intently on some projects that I never get around to other ones."

Antidote: Your challenge is to open up a closed system of endless revisions. In addition to creating a positive mantra, establish a reasonable time frame to complete a project. Set an alarm, if you need to. When the time is up, change activities, no matter what. This becomes easier with practice.

Also, consider broadening your perspective by asking a supportive friend or co-worker to review your work. The more actively you replace your all-or-nothing messages with your chosen mantra, the more you'll welcome feedback that dilutes the harshness of perfectionism.

3. Severe:

"I often lose sleep at night rehearsing the events of the following day."

"I'm so afraid of not being good enough that I become immobilized."

Antidote: Recognize that your excessive standards are padlocking your productivity.

Instead of putting your project under the microscope, examine your expectations of success. Have you developed inflated ideas of what "perfection" can bring? By replacing them with a realistic perspective, you can often deflate ballooning fears of failure.

If perfection remains a deeply ingrained value, substitute ideals of a perfect performance with a vision of perfect balance in your life. The essence of balance is learning when to let go. By participating in a balanced life rather than performing for impossible rewards, you will cultivate new strengths, and take genuine satisfaction in regaining control of your time.

In many ways there is no such thing as time management. When you think about it, time simply exists and there is nothing any of us can do to change it. We have 24 hours in the day and that is all we get.

So if we can't change that how can we manage time? Well, the answer is that we can't. We can only change what we do in the time available to us. So, really, it is much more about managing ourselves than managing time.

On average, you will probably be awake for about 16 hours in every day. When it comes down to it, spending your time productively is about what you choose to do and what you achieve in those 16 hours. And the more you want to get out of this valuable time, the better you have to manage yourself personal.

So, if you are happy with your lot and you feel that the way you spend your time now is perfect for you, then you need read no further. However, if you are reading this article you probably feel like you could make better use of your time.

If so, there are two basic things you need to to achieve effective use of your time. The first is to really know what you want out of life and how you want to spend your time. Once you know this you really have something to aim for.

The second to identify what you need to do to achieve this. Of course, there will be effort, change and discipline needed to put this into action but knowing what needs to be done is a very important start. So, for the first steps towards effective time management, focus on how you really want to spend your time and think about what you will need to do to achieve this.

When I do speaking engagements, I always stress the importance of writing things down. When you write things down, it frees your mind for more big picture thinking and you don't have to worry about the details.

That said, these are the 3 lists you absolutely must use to manage your time effectively:

1. Master list

This is a place for a "brain dump", a place for ideas you might want to pursue in the future or possible projects you need to tackle.

You can work off one master list for months, like I do with my business or blogging ideas.

I have a master list of things to do in the house which I've been working on since we moved in two years ago. Honestly, I think there will always be items on this list!

2. To-do list

This list can be monthly, weekly or daily.

The difference between this list and the master list is that this one has a time deadline to it.

I have a monthly to-do list - I keep this one with broad goals like go to the gym 10 - 12 times - a weekly to-do list with about 5 - 7 business tasks to get done and then my daily to-do list which spreads out those 5 - 7 tasks so that I have only 1 or 2 to do daily.

I want to caution you to only put a maximum of 6 items on your daily to-do list so you don't become overwhelmed!

3. Checklist

This is a place with a list of items which you check/ tick off.

This list is ideal for anything you need to do regularly, like a list of weekly cleaning tasks, office supplies, routine business tasks, etc.

Once you start using the right list for the correct task, you'll be flying!

You can download master to-do, shopping and travel lists from my site.

Wasting Your Time is Wasting Your Life:

The following quote sums up the concept I hope to get across: "Life is nothing but a measurement of time - you cannot waste one without losing the other." I hope to ingrain in you the concept that time and life of the same thing - there is no difference! Think about it, let it sink in and feel what that means. Literally, when something or someone wastes a block of your time, they have in effect stolen a chunk of your life that can never be retrieved. Let me share with you another old quote that speaks to this: "What rich man, old and sick, feeble and helpless, would not exchange all the gold in his vault for the blessings you have treated so lightly?" We must protect our time as if we are protecting our life...because, in fact, we are.

One of the greatest tragedies in life is to advance into old age, look back, and say "where did it all go?" I hope that you will learn to exchange each moment of your life only for something of value. As if you were pulling precious coins out of your pocket with the realization that once they are all gone - so are you! Treat your time and you life as precious and protect it from all the stealer's of time.

Fundamentals of Time Management:

One of the keys to effective time management is to discover where the "leaks in your boat" are. Where are we losing time? Where are we putting our energy? To answer these questions we need to get a full assessment of exactly where we are at.

Think of it as a matter of problem-solving. In this case the problem is the loss of time. So let's take a look at how problem-solving works and how it can help us to approach our time management challenges.

Classic problem-solving happens in 5 stages:

1) Awareness - We must be aware that we have a problem. You can't solve a problem that you don't know that you have, so awareness is critical.

2) Understanding - What is the nature and scope of the problem. Get clear about what is happening, why it's happening and how bad it is. Also note what it's costing you and how many areas of your life it impacts (job, home, school, relationships, money, etc.).

3) Knowledge - Study the solution(s) and gain the necessary skills to be effective in solving the problem.

4) Take Action - Commit to taking action daily and makes solving the problem of focus and a priority. Be sure to acquire the needed resources and asked for help as needed.

5) Evaluate and Adjust - Nothing goes perfectly as planned, so be flexible open and ready to adjust. Get committed to outcomes, not methods, and be willing to change your strategies ("Shift Gears") as needed.

Based on this model, the first thing to do is to gain a full awareness and careful assessment of where your time goes and how it is spent. The best way to do this is to use a time tracking sheet. The sheet is broken down into 15 minute increments, because 15 minutes is a valuable chunk of time and just right for tracking activities throughout the day.

Tracking sheets are a powerful tool. People typically can save one to two hours per day by evaluating these sheets and making the necessary corrections. This tracking this tool is central to our work -so don't skip over it, you would be cheating yourself greatly.

How to Use Your Tracking Sheets:

Track your day from beginning to end (where it starts and ends is up to you), write down what you were doing and draw a line down to the next activity to show this time was used on the task. Track your entire day like this, and repeat this process for a three to five day period. This should give you a good idea of how you spend your time, on what tasks, and how long these tasks take you. Tracking for five days should be sufficient, unless your weekly duties vary wildly.

Next, take time to note how productive/critical/profitable each task you engaged in was. This will give you a better sense of how you time is proportioned between Hide/Medium/Low gain tasks. Be brutally honest here, we don't need to defend or justify something we are going to change any ways. Besides, the more "problems" we find - the greater our ultimate gains will be!

Now take some time to self assess how you utilizing your time. What would you change to free up more time or to be more productive with the same amount of time? This step is powerful, eye-opening, and exciting, because it will help you find the blocks of time you seek. It will also give you a great sense of control and power to choose - it's a great feeling! People always feel better when they're in control and enjoying positive gains in their lives - this is what makes time management exciting and fun!

How to Use Your Time Planning Sheet:

First, make yourself several copies of your time tracking sheet to now use as your time planning sheet.

Speaker Jim Rohn says, "Before you start the day, finish it on paper." What this means is that planning the day will create time savings, a focused plan with targets, it will give you a better sense of control and make you aware if you're getting drawn off track (- this may show you the areas that need improvement or are problematic).

I know this may sound strange in an article on saving time, but be sure to schedule in breaks and time to solve unexpected problems. I do this for two reasons: 1) unexpected problems are a fact of life - supplant for the unexpected (*remember this is a reasonable/realistic planning sheet - not a fantasy). 2) scheduling breaks keeps you alert, happy, and sane! You will also likely notice that breaks keep your problem-solving abilities fresh, you're more creative, your memory is better and you make fewer errors. As a secondary benefit, in a pinch, these breaks also allow pad for unexpected problems that take longer than expected. I typically allot for 2 fifteen minute breaks and a half hour for the unexpected daily (I may not always use them - but most days I do, and this keeps my plans on track).

Planning the day like this typically improves peoples efficiency or time savings by 10 to 25% the first time they use it! See how you make out after your first date using the system. You will quickly see that this strategy is worth the small amount of time it takes to implement daily.

Running a successful cleaning business, well it's not easy, take it from me, I have been doing it for 27-years. The trick is time management, but where does one go to learn how to manage, market and run a cleaning business? It is not as if they teach it in school. Being an entrepreneur in the service industry requires skills far greater than a college degree.

You have to be a master at managing, marketing, efficiency, scheduling, planning and you must focus. Easier said than done, perhaps what you need is a really good coach, a mentor, someone who gets it and can help you thru the maze of regulations and traps of self-employed. Most cleaning entrepreneurs have to start from scratch, a seemingly daunting task, but if you have the right help, you can avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that cause most small businesses of this type to go bankrupt.

"Running a successful cleaning business takes an extraordinary amount of time to plan, create, and implement the systems."

States Scott F. Rendall, CEO and President of the Cleaning Mentor - and that is before you even do the work or run the daily business operations.

Truly, I certainly wish I had, had the wisdom and mentorship of the Cleaning Mentor when I started my company. I can tell you this, I probably made every single mistake someone could make in the cleaning business, and it took me a whole lot longer to succeed than it should have.

Looking back now, I would have to advise anyone starting out in the cleaning business to seek professional assistance and find a mentor and coach that you can work with, one who will help you thru the minefields as you grow your company. Nothing good in life is ever easy, certainly running your own company isn't, but why make it any tougher than you have to? Well, that is certainly something to contemplate in 2008.

Have you ever noticed how busy your day seems, running errands most of the day, and exhausted at the end of it? Then at the end of the week as you look back, it just doesn't seem like you are making the kind of progress you hoped for. This scenario occurs most days and weeks turn in months and into years and you can never seem to get ahead as you had expected.

The key to achieving any kind of success in life is learning time management. Even though you have the intelligence, ambition, and all the goals set in place, ineffective planning of your time will sabotage you. Personal time management is an essential component to reaching any goal. By managing your time effectively, you will automatically improve your level of efficiency and increase your productivity.

When you learn to manage your time effectively, you gain more control over your life on many levels. You will have full control of all the events surrounding it. You will discover more time for family, friends, making a contribution to society, or taking care of your health.

The good news is that you can learn this skill of time management. Learning this skill can go a long way in helping you accomplish any task you dream of undertaking. It can also relieve you of stress and anxiety and brings more peace of mind, and not to mention the accomplishments of your goals.

Planning Ahead

The key to effective time management is planning ahead. Each evening before you end your day, you must plan out your schedule for the following day. List in pencil all the things you plan to tackle for the following day(s). Know what your long-term goals are and how to prepare short-term to accomplish them accordingly.

First you must take into account the time of day when you are most alert and full of energy so your can plan your heaviest tasks around those hours. You know your biorhythms better than anyone else.

Know your strengths and your weaknesses. Don't overload yourself when you know you become overwhelmed easily and shut down. It is better to schedule 1 important task and accomplish it than to attempt 5 tasks and not complete any. Don't feel afraid to ask for help. Life coaching is one source where you can find the assistance you need.

If your objective is to achieve a particular goal you must first learn to prioritize. You must organize your list based on the importance. Realize you will have daily tasks to attend to as well as tasks that bring you closer to accomplishing your goals. There will also be emergencies that pop up occasionally, which you must attend to. However, after you have taken care of the emergency, immediately return to your objectives.

Next, realistically determine how much time you feel it would take to complete each task. Schedule appointments whenever and wherever you can. Give yourself enough time to complete each task. Allow one day, or one week, or one month depending on the task. Make it fun by challenging yourself to getting your task completed by a specific time. Most of all, remember that with each plan and with each execution of your plan, you are one step closer to achieving you ultimate goal. No task is too small when it comes to planning ahead.

Don't forget your planner behind!

Saying NO

In managing your time effectively, it is essential to be selective of the tasks you undertake. Learning to say NO can move you light years ahead in managing your time. Let's face it, saying YES to someone's request feels good. It gets us liked and we feel as if we are indeed helping. We believe that by saying yes, others will perceive us in a positive light. There are those who say yes out of guilt or just out of habit. The important thing to remember is:

# saying no is not minimizing someone else's request.
# saying no is not being selfish.
# saying no means saying YES to you.
# saying no means giving some thought to what was requested of you. Here you can take the time to explore the request to see if you can realistically commit to it.
# saying no means relieving yourself of unnecessary stress

You must learn the right way to say NO. If it is abrupt you will be perceived negatively. The best way to handle a request is to ask for some time to think about the requested task. Assure the person you will get back to them. This gives you the opportunity to examine the task and your schedule to see if you can fit it in. Then you contact that person and humble decline. Let that person know that you would like to be considered for future tasks but at this time it you will not be able to do a thorough job because of your tight schedule.

Once you have made some progress with your schedule and you feel you can donate some something extra time, let it be known. In the meantime, be careful not to overload your life. This can cause enormous stress, anxiety and slow down your efforts.

Learning to say NO is a great step in time management.

Time Hijackers

If you do not get into the habit of planning your time in advance there are many other factors that can hijack your time as well. Let's take a look at some of them.

Lack of focus

Not having a goal or an objective can seriously hijack your time and interfere with your time management ability. You will float through life and not accomplish anything. This is the first step towards achieving any goal. One you have identified you goal decide how you plan to achieve it. Determine how much time and effort it would take to accomplish it in terms of days, months, years. Then begin prioritizing and planning your time each day.

Procrastination

So you've identified your objectives and goals and feel enthusiastic about embarking on your journey. You have everything written down and you feel confident to begin. However, you begin to find over ways to avoid getting your list of things done. This is a sure time hijacker and you will NEVER reach your objective this way.

The Telephone

This is a huge hijacker in time management. Some of us forget the control we have over the telephone. Instead we allow the telephone to control us and it ends up hijacking our time. The moment is rings we feel we must immediately attend to it. Today with caller ID available you can identify your callers. When you are focused on your task at hand and the time you have to accomplish it, you must learn to better control the telephone. Unless it's an emergency, let the phone ring when you need to preserve your time. If there is a problem, the caller will leave a message. You can check your messages and decide how to attend to the issue or how much importance you want to give it at the time. This can save you many hours throughout your day.

Time Management Tips

Here are some tips to think about when thinking about planning your time.

Personal organization

This is an area that must be addressed from the start. Personal disorganization will get you nowhere fast. I have noticed this is an area that is difficult to admit to. Unable to personally organize is not a sign of lack of intelligence or incapability. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and this may be one of your weaknesses. If it is an area you need help in, solicit the help of a life coach. Once you have some personal, organizational infrastructures in place, your time will be spent more wisely and you will make quicker progress towards achieving your goals. In order to plan ahead, you must have your personal life and personal space organized.

Social time

We all love to visit with our friends and enjoy some fun, social moments together. However, these times must be planned otherwise they can interfere with your time management. When you friends call for some spontaneous get together, if you have planned ahead and accomplished you tasks for that day, then you will have the time available for some fun and laughter. If you haven't planned properly and was unable to complete your planned tasks for that day, when you get together with your friends you cannot feel completely relaxed knowing that you still have 3 very important things you didn't attend to. You don't' have to accept every invitation you receive for socializing. Remember you are ultimately in control of how much time to spend socializing. This can consume your life without even realizing it. Learn to say NO sometimes. Planning ahead makes room in your life for completing your daily tasks and allows more relaxed time with friends.

Damage Control

If you do not plan your time well, most of your day will be spent putting out fires or running around doing damage control. By planning ahead, you are taking care of high priority issues in your life so when emergencies arise, you are better prepared to handle them and they do not set you back. You deal with them and get right back to your planned schedule.

Most importantly, always be aware of your objective. Your goals must be clearly defined and written in a place where you can see them every day. You must have a plan for achieving your goal. Your ability to manage your time is the key to executing your plan.

What would happen if you stopped managing time? Picture it in your mind for a moment. Would everything around you start to fall like glass breaking in slow motion? What if it didn't?

Although time management is at the top of most entrepreneurial women's priorities, few are able to do it to their satisfaction. I've spent many years working with women who become frustrated and overwhelmed, all while struggling with the accepted "good ways" of managing time. So many of us - whether working from home, a favorite coffee shop, or a professional building - end up blaming ourselves as we struggle with trying to organize our lives in ways that aren't a good fit. It's not unusual to find ourselves flailing when we take on someone else's idea of how things should be done. The secret, as counter-intuitive as it seems, starts with an invitation to stop managing time altogether. We can't really do it anyway - it's an illusion.

We are all unique people with our own set of perspectives and innate strengths. We run at different speeds, on different fuels, using different engines.

Compare two successful business owners at the start of their day:

Owner #1 wakes with her wheels already spinning. Jumping immediately into her day, she works in high gear until early afternoon. Lunching late and alone, she prefers music and long walks in the park to business lunches. Once refueled, she's back into high gear until early evening, closing deals in other time zones until stopping for a late dinner with friends.

Owner #2 begins her day with a good stretch. She faithfully keeps to an exercise routine before work, all the while planning and strategizing what she will accomplish later in the day. At work she remains calm under stress, attaining her goals while remaining in low gear.

So, how can both women achieve meaningful success? Their secret lies in how they use their energy throughout the day. Owner #1 has learned how to ride the big energy waves when she feels them; owner #2 knows her best can be elicited by sustaining a steady pace that keeps her clear, focused and efficient. The comparison shows us two distinctive styles of maximizing the power of effective personal energy management.

Everyone has a picture of success they hold in their minds, along with a list of what they think achieving it requires. These beliefs about how we "should" get things done can blind us to better ways of accomplishing what we want. Becoming too focused on managing time can channel needed energy and creativity away from the goals themselves.

What if you started over? What if you took your focus off managing time altogether and instead looked at your natural energy rhythms. What if your new attempt involved a fresh look at the hours in your day as a space to fill with your inherent energy pattern?

While not all of us have the luxury of designing every moment around when we feel like working, most of us do have more choices than we perceive. If you feel ready for more energy, efficiency, and a greater sense of accomplishment when you lay your head on your pillow at night, it may be time to stop focusing on managing time, and start focusing on managing your energy.

Ignoring our feelings for more pushing-through erases opportunities where we can manage our energy. It's time to shatter this tiring, brittle habit. Responding to our body's needs is like replacing this fragile routine with tempered glass - a material with improved resiliency. Managing time requires us to focus on time, while managing our energy creates instant self-care, keeping our attention on what will actually support us in our greatest personal and business success. These can become the new habits - ones that fit perfectly.

In the military, soldiers apply the skill of time appreciation in all they do. Aptly named, time appreciation is the calculation of how long it takes to complete a task/mission given the steps and skills required to complete it. Soldiers value time, not just manage it because in combat the ability to meet a timing means life or death. In business, a person's life may not be in jeopardy but time lines, riddled with obstacles, are forever looming. Below are six tips to help run your business with military precision without having to go to boot camp.

1. Write It Down - People waste time when they forget what they need to do. If you are one of those people, make a list. Use a pen and paper, PDA, computer or day timer. The important thing is to actually write a list and use it. The visual cue of seeing tasks get crossed off is a great sense of accomplishment motivating you to continue on a path of successful serial listing.

2. Schedule Everything - Schools run on schedules to ensure students know what to do, where to do it and for how long. The same is true for business. Make a schedule of your day to include meetings, phone calls, checking email, doctor appointments and even lunch. You are less likely to neglect a task you scheduled because that dedicated block of time places a level of importance on getting that task done.

3. Learn To Say No - Volunteering on committees, speaking at conferences and heading up associations inspires a sense of achievement. Yet, it is possible to give away time too freely and end up with none for your business. Extra activities can multiply and eat into time used to do business with existing clients or in securing future clients. Evaluate what extra activities you currently do. Calculate how much time you dedicate to your business and personal life then determine how much you realistically have left for the extras. Give something up or start practicing your polite, "Thank you for considering me for this committee but I will have to decline right now," line. Do it for your sanity, the sake of your business and the ever important family/personal life you are trying to maintain.

4. Remember You - You look after business. Who's looking after you? Before you end up on Bravo's show, "Intervention," start looking after yourself. If blocking personal time into your daily schedule (remember tip 2?) is the only way you can do it...get on it! Schedule a fitness class, play time with the kids, a golf game, a weekend away or even an hour of reading.

5. Be Realistic - This is where time appreciation comes into play. Set deadlines and make lists that are realistic. Know what each task involves, the steps required to complete it and the materials needed to get it done. Pre-planning allows you to set reasonable goals and schedules that are successful.

6. Stay Organized - Has a whirling dervish taken refuge in your office leaving everything in chaos? Clear the clutter! You will be more productive if your workspace is organized by spending more time working and less trying to find your work. If you are in a vicious circle of cleaning, making a mess and cleaning up again, seek professional help or at least re-assess the functionality of your office. Adding more storage and filing solutions will make a world of difference! Money spent on organization is an investment in your success.

If you feel overwhelmed by the list above, pick one tip you can easily introduce into your workday. Be consistent, believe in it and soon it will become second nature. Gradually, introduce new skills into your time management arsenal until you become a well oiled time appreciation machine.

So you want to solve your time problem? Well it's simple -- you need some good time management solutions. These will come in the form of ideas, strategies, and techniques you can use to get more productivity out of your work, relationships and personal life. In this article, I'll show you how to come up with your own time management solutions.

The biggest problem that most people have with time management is that there is nothing motivating them to become more productive. Sure, they wish they had more time on their hands. Or they wish that they could get more done with their business so they can make more money. Notice the key word here though is wish. Most of them do not have a burning desire to get more, earn more and do more. Therefore, they do not come up with any time management solutions.

So the first thing you need to do is to create a compelling reason for why you should manage your time more effectively. You need to cultivate a burning desire to get more out of some area or aspect of your life, if you're going to properly use time management effectively. Otherwise, all the extra productivity and time you gain will be wasted -- and that's a time management sin!

Once you create a desire that will compel you to manage your time better, it is simply a matter of tracking and innovation. Keep track of what works and what doesn't work, as far as your time is concerned. Then, simply disregard the techniques and time wasters, and replace them with more effective strategies. By continually tracking results, and tinkering around with your approach, you will begin to manage your time better. That's how you can create your own time management solutions.

The Best Time Management Tools

Time management is perhaps the most important aspect of any persons life. Whether you do it consciously or not, you have a strategy for managing your time. Most people have poor time management strategies. That is because they have poor time management tools. In this article, I will show you how to leverage the best tools to get more out of your personal and professional life.

The best time management tools you can have are a paper and pencil. This is your time diary. For a week, just make a log each time you do a task. Include every time you switch from one task to another, and the time it took you to complete the task. At the end of the week, analyze where core time is going. Now you have an idea of what your biggest time wasters are, and how you can improve on your time management.

Also, a paper and pencil is a valuable tool for creating a schedule. There are a lot of different fancy planners and time management programs out there that come with all kinds of color-coded tabs and folders, and if that's your thing -- go for it! But my opinion, the easiest way to keep track of your schedule, and prioritize your activities, is to write them down on a piece of paper.

Then, you can scan down the piece of paper and ask yourself this question -- "what is the most important activity that needs to be done right now, in the available amount of time that I have?" Do that activity, then cross it off the list.

Other valuable time management tools come in the form of educational material. There are many great ideas out there that you can use in your own personal time management. One great idea may end up saving you 30 minutes a day. You can expose yourself to new ideas by reading new books, listening to audio programs and talking to other productive people.

How do you know if you are in dire need of time management tips for unmanageable and disorganized people? Ask yourself: Do I feel as though I'm constantly busy and harassed and yet I never seem to get anything done? Why is it I can never find free time to do the things I want? Is my time even really my own? If you answered "yes," "I don't know," and "no" - in that order - then it's probably time to read up on helpful time management books or articles. One of the highly recommended books is "Time Management for Unmanageable People" by Anne Mcgee-Cooper.

Here are some time management tips that may help you manage time and enjoy a balanced life.

Organize and prioritize. Make a checklist of things to do. Finish each project before moving on to the next one rather than jumping from task to task, as this is counterproductive.

Deal with the deadliest deadlines first and work your way down to the least pressing item. You've probably heard it before: Start with the most difficult and the rest will seem that much easier to tackle. This time management tip doesn't work for everyone though.

If you fall under that category, try doing it the other way around. Some prefer finishing all of the easy tasks first and getting them out of the way in order to focus more on the big task. Getting the smaller things done and seeing all those check marks on your to-do list can be very gratifying and could even give you the motivation you need to work on the bigger job at hand.

Pick a schedule and stick to it. You wouldn't shirk on a meeting with the boss, would you? So treat every task as though it were an important and indispensable appointment.

The development of the discipline needed to give each the proper time of day is essential as well. But have some leeway for interruptions, social obligations, and personal emergencies, and even more for the bigger priorities so that you are not thrown off course and you don't start panicking about your ruined schedule when something unexpected suddenly comes up.

Learn these time management tips for unmanageable and disorganized people and rein in your unruly calendar. Manage your time wisely and watch the rest of your life fall perfectly into place.

It's the number one complaint I get from clients. "I just don't have enough time!" Almost without exception, people use time as their number one excuse for not having the life they want and see themselves as victims of their reality of "no time." The ability to spend time with family, work out, or take a seminar seems nearly impossible in the shadow of sixty-hour workweeks and the demands of the job outside the home. Heaven forbid we should take on a hobby!

Volumes of books have been written on time management and chances are, somewhere along the way of our personal growth and development, we learned a couple of methods to combat the demands of our hectic schedules. Tips on how to manage our time are everywhere to be found, but are those tips really providing us with the answers we need to find the joy we so want in our lives?

There is one truth about time. It's a fixed commodity and one cannot "make more time." It's impossible. There are only 24 hours in a day. Non-negotiable. Sorry, we can't change that. However, one can shift one's experience of time. And while this may seem a rather esoteric response to a very practical issue, there are some very practical "how-to's" that can be explored around this idea.

First, let us examine what some of our very basic beliefs are about time. Are you one that that believes "time is money?" Or do you live by the adage, "there's no time like the present?" Do you resist the "ravages of time?" Or "is time on your side?" What does "in a timely manner" mean to you? These phrases represent just a few commonly held notions around the concept of time. So, our first step in creating freedom in your life in this "time domain" is to first take a look at what cultural and societal beliefs you have either consciously or unconsciously accepted about time. Do you share your company's beliefs about time? Are you always "a day late and a dollar short?" Are your deadlines impossible to meet? Over the next couple of weeks, notice how you experience time and notice what you are saying about time. This means noticing the time you have, and the time you don't have. The time others "make" you waste, or the time you give up to do something you really love to do.

Then you will want to tell the truth about how you are really spending your time. Every person has a particular style in life that allows for his or her success and these strategies are reflected in the way that time is spent. Are some of your success strategies then working against you? Perhaps you run a company that is known for it's unique product. Everyone in the company is completely devoted to the sale of this product. Most of the company's resources are relegated to supporting outside sales. But when will the time be spent for product innovation? How will this company survive the natural evolution of the marketplace? Obviously, this raises the question, what adjustments need to be made to factor in the certain obsolescence of the currently popular product?

It has been said by many wise and successful people that time management is the most important element of life. Time is the one resource that is not able to be replenished - once you to use it up, it is gone forever. We all manage our money meticulously. Most of us claim to try to manage our health. We manage the use of our utilities at home. We plan the shortest routes driving in order to manage our fuel consumption. We have to manage our time more than any of these.

Unsuccessful people often claim that they just do not have enough time in the day to accomplish what they would really like to. There's more time in the day than people think. Conversely, successful people accomplish what they desire to through effective time management. Many people claim that they try hard to manage their time competently, but still cannot make the progress that they desire in their lives. They lack a well-organized flow chart. Here's one to consider for you:

You need to plan your upcoming week at the end of your current week.

1. Set goals for each of the days of the upcoming week.

2. Set specific business goals for each of those days aside from your personal goals.

a. It is good to set three or four business goals per day.

3. Each goal may be comprised of several individual actions.

4. Each individual action needs to have a specific time range allocated for it.

5. Once you have your plan in place, did not stray from it.

b. Complete each action thoroughly.

c. Do not allow yourself to rationalize why this was a bad plan.

d. If for some reason it is impossible to complete an action, let it flow over onto the next day's agenda.

6. Your time management schedule must take priority over every other single element of your life. You must allow nothing to stand in the way of your success.

7. Focus your attention like a laser on your action plan.

8. Disallow the concept of failure with every fiber of your being. You will never succeed by accommodating failure.

It may seem tough it first. In time, you will only wish that you had begun sooner. You will see that time management is the key to all success. The only way for success to occur without effective management of your time is by sheer luck - a concept for losers. Don't gamble with your future anymore! Ensure it with powerful time management techniques.

In the postmodern and connected life we “manage” our time. While world religions can’t agree whether time is linear, circular or stops altogether at one point, it seems to be a rather pretentious endeavor to establish rules for time management. Also for the faithless time remains an enigma and sometimes difficult to bear. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that intelligence is the capability to be alone, and we might as well say - the capability to be alone when time passes by.

We can foster our philosophical understanding of time by using it efficiently in our daily lives dedicated to making money and thus gaining freedom from financial pressures. The single most reason for not realizing our longings in life lies in financial restrictions, hence money is an enabler for independence. When we assume independence from the usual walks of the life of the white collar worker’s 9-6-day in the office, we experience enhanced ease of time. We will grow more silent in our minds, and in silence there are truth and power for an eventually happier life.

Let’s have a look at daily practices for time management and more financial success:

If you organize your working time with reference to the Eisenhower method, you learn to distinguish the important from the urgent and to act accordingly. Ask yourself about every issue how it fits into the below mental diagram:

Important and urgent - get done with it right away.

Important but not urgent - make an entry into your calendar.

Not important but urgent - try to delegate as much as possible and reduce involvement.

Not important and not urgent - trash it.

The Eisenhower method makes sense if we work receiving from and reacting to the environment, i.e. if we are working dependently. This method helps to prioritize work tasks. In order to become financially free we have to go one step further and look at how we should plan and spend effectively.

Let’s have a look at the “time quadrant”. So, once more we have the dimensions urgent and important, but this time we do not look at how they help us prioritize work tasks, but at how to spend our time in first place so we can plan our lives.

Steven Covey also describes this time management matrix in the “the 7 habits of highly effective people” in habit 3 “Put First Things First”.

Urgent and important - fighting daily fires. This is where most people spend much of their time, doing so is a guarantee to remain in the rat race. Try to minimize your time in this quadrant and if possible, delegate.

Not urgent and important - strategic thinking, big picture mode. This is where you see the forest and not only the tree. This is where you want to spend quality time, maximize!

Urgent and not important - urgent to someone else, not important to you. This is the daily situation of unhappily employed people. Minimize!

Not urgent and not important - this is where you waste your time. Like e.g. gossiping on the phone, watching television, surfing the Internet without purpose. Try to minimize!

Even if we plan our time and spend most of our time in strategic thinking mode, we are sometimes overwhelmed by our daily lives. To gain clarity again and physical strength we should retreat once in a while. Eventually peace of mind and happiness will come along with developing your own inherent time making you a fully intrinsically motivated person.

Augustine of Hippo once said “There is only one word written on the eternal watch - now!” - this tells us not to procrastinate. This is also where intuitions come into play to make wise decision, as in the complex world we live in we do not - and in fact should not - always have the time to gather all the information we feel is required to take an informed decision. If we learn to use our intuitions we learn to be close to ourselves.

Finally, we actively need to give our friends, families, leisure and pleasure the same priority as we give to our work.

Applying the simple methods describe above will not only help us become more effective professionals, but also bring us closer to time. Development, it was once said, is the increase of consciousness.

Your number one leadership task is to spread an exciting, motivational and profitable vision for your company. Number two, just as important, is to insure execution. Whether employees, contractors, partners, even vendors, it makes no difference - all execution begins with you asking someone to do something. When viewed in this light, "asking" may be the most fundamental element aspect of your daily work, so you'd better get good at it.

According to Philosopher John Searle, all action begins with someone asking another for something. In his book Speech Acts he calls it "making requests."

A request expresses a desire for the addressee to do a certain thing and normally aims for the addressee to intend to and, indeed, actually do that thing. A promise expresses the speaker's firm intention to do something, together with the belief that by his utterance he is obligated to do it, and normally aims further for the addressee to expect, and to feel entitled to expect, the speaker to do it.

Sure, Searle's wording is a little dense, but follow his logic. Does anyone do anything meaningful without being asked, and without in return, promising to do so? (Even the self-motivated, ask things of themselves.) Making requests causes your people to carry on the business of the company. Want something done? Just ask. Of course, when you are the ranking executive people automatically say yes, and that thing is done. That's called power. But requests carry their own little problem.

Most of us, even leaders, hate rejection. So when we make requests they are typically for small things, easy-to-do things, even wimpy things. It is rare that we ask for what we really hope someone will accomplish-or even agree to. We cut back our expectations. Our scaled-down requests make it easy for others to agree, but those requests bring us results far below what we really want. Over time, repeatedly accepting that we can't ask too much from people, our expectations drop permanently.

Here's a secret that can up-shift your results. Linguistically, a request differs from an order or a demand. Searle's "addressee" doesn't have to say "Yes, sir." She can as easily say "no" to your request. She can counter-propose, offering a different solution. Even if you are the big boss, leave your people free to say "No, it can't be done," or "No-at least, not now," or something like that. All promises are voluntary involving free will. The other party can evaluate the possibility of whatever it is you asked, and then decide.

Now, of course, people may think what you're asking is wildly "unreasonable" but decide to say yes anyway. That's their call. But once they do, it's your job to support them to succeed. Don't approach this frivolously.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; . . . knock, and it shall be opened unto you." If you're going to knock, don't be meek about it. Why ask for things that are reasonable and easy to deliver? Knock on the big doors. Knock loudly.

Back to John Searle for a moment. Nothing happens until you ask someone for something. And nothing big happens unless you ask for something big. If you have committed your company to a significant course of action, puny requests cannot get the job done. You have to ask people for a lot. Up the ante and make your requests unreasonable requests.

Big Requests Cost No More Than Small Ones

Large requests cost you no more than small ones, and since people can say "no" to either, ask for what you want. Ask for what you need. Ask people to do things you think you have no right to expect from them; ask for things to which you expect they'll say no. But ask anyway.

Here's the trick: expect them to say yes and don't worry about whether they do or they don't. Train your staff the same way. Imagine that your entire team is continually unreasonable in their requests, while confidently expecting those requests will be met. What do you think will happen? What if you made it a game whose object is to promise to deliver, no matter what? Would that rocket your project or your business forward? Of course, it would.

Just as making formal requests is not a normal activity for people in businesses, unreasonable requests are doubly abnormal. Making unreasonable requests takes guts. You'll shock some people. Others will get angry. Nevertheless, if your goals are important enough, shaking people up is likely to be a good thing. And once you have fully internalized the results you wish to produce, you'll make the kinds of requests that will deliver with aplomb.

Bump it up

To accelerate your results, bump it up. Whatever you were going to ask for, ask for more. Whenever you wanted it, request it sooner. Whatever you were willing to pay, ask for it free. You get the idea. Your business will move forward in direct proportion to the size of the requests, so go ahead: ask unreasonably. Amplify your requests. Set that knob to an eleven.

Take out a pad and draw a line down the middle. Title the left column, "Reasonable Requests I Was Going to Make," and the right, "Those Requests Made Unreasonable." For example, your reasonable request might be, "Bill, I need this by Friday." Your revised unreasonable version: "Bill, I need this tomorrow morning." Or, you may be planning on calling your banker, Yvonne, to ask for a 30-day extension. Your new unreasonable request could be, "Yvonne, I need to double my line of credit and extend the terms." You get the idea. Do the unreasonable: Ask for a lot.

Unreasonable Requests Motivate

Besides increasing productivity, big requests motivate. Would you rather do some difficult but glorious thing, or would you prefer some small task yielding results no one will ever hear of? If there's anyone on your team who chooses the latter, transfer him immediately.

People will still approach your challenge with fear and trembling. They may need a bit of courage to agree, but with that comes a feeling of heroism. People love to feel as if they're doing something meaningful, even daring. Perhaps they will be called upon to rescue the company. They are doubly motivated when what you've asked feels like life or death.

My first business partner repeatedly told our troops our company was in dire straits and that saving it-along with saving their own jobs-would require an act of huge commitment. Occasionally he exaggerated the depths of financial despair, but he always praised our employees' valor and called forth their willingness to help rescue the business. Even though this drama went on for years, they never tired of hearing about it, and they never failed to rise to the challenge.

To insure execution, you have to ask people to take action. Make those requests reasonable, and people will give you modest results. Make them big, splendid. Make them unreasonable, and you inspire your team to greatness. Be unreasonable. Ask for everything you need. Ask for the moon. You just might get it.