As January quickly yields to February, if you’re anything like me, the holiday season that you looked forward to for so long, is now a long distant memory and the end of this year seems so far away. The danger is that if you don’t take control of your time this year, you won’t get the most out of it and the year will seem to just go by without any real excitement or achievement.
So, I wanted to share with you what I am doing this year to really ramp up my use of time and make sure I get the most out of the year ahead. What follows is a list of things I am doing to take back control of my life. Hopefully you’ll find something that works for you from this list.
- Limiting use of email to important things only – I am reducing the amount of time I spend on email and will be educating my clients and colleagues that I will only be available during certain times of the day to respond. This will reduce the number of interruptions I create for myself throughout the day. To help with this I have also turned off the reminder that pops up every time a new email hits my inbox and I have set myself a target to clean out my inbox of all emails each day!
- Plan your next holidays – I have a paper based diary and an electronic diary I use for my work. I have already blocked out two periods this year so that I can break it up and have something to look forward to. My first break will happen in April and the other in September.
- Priority setting for each day – I am only putting two priorities on my list for each day to complete before 11.30am. These are the most important (not the most urgent) things that will contribute most to helping me achieve my goals. I set my priorities at the end of the day for the next day so that I can hit the ground running in the morning.
- Shortening the work week – I have set a goal to work 4 days per week this year, taking Mondays or Fridays off. Whilst this might not seem possible to you right now, it’s a matter of putting systems in place to free your time up. It also requires you letting go of some stuff that really isn’t adding much value to your situation anyway.
- Condense timelines – I am setting deliberately short deadlines for all priorities to ensure that the tasks don’t expand to eat up the time. This is known as Parkinson’s Law. You know as well as I do that you are most productive the day before you go on leave. Why? Because you want to relax! Right? Well isn’t it amazing how many things you can get done on that last day and how productive you are?
These are just a few of the practical time management tips that I use to make sure I’m not wasting time and am working more productively. The aim is not perfection. The goal is better results in less time!
Given it’s Monday, take some time right now to set your priorities to complete this week and reduce the amount of time that gets wasted because you don’t have clarity about what to spend your time on!
Build massive momentum!
