Day 3 of 10 Days to Prefect Time Management
10 Days To Time Management
- Day Three.
- By Lalit Adhikari
Day Three: Planning and Organizing.
The core function of time management is planning and organizing your-self and your-work for maximum productivity. Determine a place for everything and keep everything in their respective place.
Keep on planning persistently and continually. Always write and rewrite your goals, think on paper and continuously analyse and evaluate your plans.
The more time you spend planning, the better you plan becomes. By reworking on your plans, your goals become more believable and achievable.
It is estimated that 1 minute spent in planning, saves at-least 5 minutes in execution. Or you can say, your investment in planning pays you a 500% return. Can you get a 500% return on investment doing anything else?
Action without planning is the reason for every failure. If we all consider our major mistakes in our life, they almost all have one thing in common, that one thing is our tendency to rush into situation without thinking enough about it. We either don't get enough information or we don't take enough time to weigh and balance all pros and cons before acting.
4 ideas to get yourself organized:
1. Neatness is a key habit for personal productivity. Your productivity increases dramatically when you keep your work-place neat and organized. Remember "Order is heaven's first law". You need a sense of order to stay relaxed and to control your environment and your life. If you work in messy environment then you use a large portion of your brain in remembering where your things are rather than using that on work.
2. Have everything at hand before beginning. Gather all the tools of your trade before starting the job.
3. Resolve to handle every piece of paper (one of your to-do or action-plan) only once. Make decision to do something with it when you pick it up and don't pick it up unless you are ready to act on it. You can use a popular TRAF system, where each letter stand for specific action
T- Toss, one of the most important tool for time management at home or office is the waste basket. Unsubscribe from unwanted emails and other reading material which is not related to your goals etc.
R- Refer, is there someone else who should be handling it, is their someone else who could handle it better than you. If yes, then just REFER.
A- Action, for all paper for which you have to take action. Get your-self a folder and write on it ACTION and put all such papers in it. Keep it handy, whenever you come across such paper just put in it for later.
F- File, anything designated in file is work. So, be carefully as 80% of papers we have are not needed. Just ask yourself what would have happened if i could found this paper?
One of the greatest time waster is reading same piece of paper over and over again.
4. When you are finished with it- put it away. Start with a clean work-space and end with a clean work-space. There's a deep satisfaction in completing a task that means leaving nothing out. One of the hardest thing to learn is the habit of putting things away but the only habit that is going to serve you all your life.
There are several time planners available in market. The best time planner enables you to plan for year, month and each day.
There are three kind of things-to-do list:
1. For long term goal: Main goals.
2. Time bound action plan list: It involves breaking main goals in various steps and action plan and assigning a certain time period for every plan.
3. Daily list: Regular to-do list. It is your daily to-do list which contains your personal work and some part from your time bound action plan list according to time assigned for an action.
Doing this will definitely make you feel at-least 25% more effective from the day 1 of starting list system.
5 more ideas you can use to help get yourself organized and more productive:
1. Prepare your daily list for next day, the evening or night before. The best way to end your day is to plan your next day's goals and actions before. In this way, your sub-conscious goes to work on your plans and goals while you are asleep and very often you are going to get up with ideas and insights that can be applied to the work of the day.
2. Scheduling your time reduces stress and releases energy. It gives you a feeling of control and happiness that your whole another day is planned in advance.
3. Take time to sit, to think and to plan. Many successful people have same tendency of "early to bed and early to rise". This gives them time to think and plan their life.
4. Use an organized files system, both at home and work. Also have a master list of all your files and their content.
5. Do creative work during your internal prime time. The internal prime time, according to your body clock, when you are most alert and productive.
A final tip for those who travel a lot and have to work during travelling time. If you don't want to get interrupted by someone, who wants to start a conversation, just at the beginning when he/ she asks you "What do you do?" Smile sweetly and reply: "I'm fundraiser for village's culture." This will never fail to terminate any conversation.
The core function of time management is planning and organizing your-self and your-work for maximum productivity. Determine a place for everything and keep everything in their respective place.
Keep on planning persistently and continually. Always write and rewrite your goals, think on paper and continuously analyse and evaluate your plans.
The more time you spend planning, the better you plan becomes. By reworking on your plans, your goals become more believable and achievable.
It is estimated that 1 minute spent in planning, saves at-least 5 minutes in execution. Or you can say, your investment in planning pays you a 500% return. Can you get a 500% return on investment doing anything else?
Action without planning is the reason for every failure. If we all consider our major mistakes in our life, they almost all have one thing in common, that one thing is our tendency to rush into situation without thinking enough about it. We either don't get enough information or we don't take enough time to weigh and balance all pros and cons before acting.
4 ideas to get yourself organized:
1. Neatness is a key habit for personal productivity. Your productivity increases dramatically when you keep your work-place neat and organized. Remember "Order is heaven's first law". You need a sense of order to stay relaxed and to control your environment and your life. If you work in messy environment then you use a large portion of your brain in remembering where your things are rather than using that on work.
2. Have everything at hand before beginning. Gather all the tools of your trade before starting the job.
3. Resolve to handle every piece of paper (one of your to-do or action-plan) only once. Make decision to do something with it when you pick it up and don't pick it up unless you are ready to act on it. You can use a popular TRAF system, where each letter stand for specific action
T- Toss, one of the most important tool for time management at home or office is the waste basket. Unsubscribe from unwanted emails and other reading material which is not related to your goals etc.
R- Refer, is there someone else who should be handling it, is their someone else who could handle it better than you. If yes, then just REFER.
A- Action, for all paper for which you have to take action. Get your-self a folder and write on it ACTION and put all such papers in it. Keep it handy, whenever you come across such paper just put in it for later.
F- File, anything designated in file is work. So, be carefully as 80% of papers we have are not needed. Just ask yourself what would have happened if i could found this paper?
One of the greatest time waster is reading same piece of paper over and over again.
4. When you are finished with it- put it away. Start with a clean work-space and end with a clean work-space. There's a deep satisfaction in completing a task that means leaving nothing out. One of the hardest thing to learn is the habit of putting things away but the only habit that is going to serve you all your life.
There are several time planners available in market. The best time planner enables you to plan for year, month and each day.
There are three kind of things-to-do list:
1. For long term goal: Main goals.
2. Time bound action plan list: It involves breaking main goals in various steps and action plan and assigning a certain time period for every plan.
3. Daily list: Regular to-do list. It is your daily to-do list which contains your personal work and some part from your time bound action plan list according to time assigned for an action.
Doing this will definitely make you feel at-least 25% more effective from the day 1 of starting list system.
5 more ideas you can use to help get yourself organized and more productive:
1. Prepare your daily list for next day, the evening or night before. The best way to end your day is to plan your next day's goals and actions before. In this way, your sub-conscious goes to work on your plans and goals while you are asleep and very often you are going to get up with ideas and insights that can be applied to the work of the day.
2. Scheduling your time reduces stress and releases energy. It gives you a feeling of control and happiness that your whole another day is planned in advance.
3. Take time to sit, to think and to plan. Many successful people have same tendency of "early to bed and early to rise". This gives them time to think and plan their life.
4. Use an organized files system, both at home and work. Also have a master list of all your files and their content.
5. Do creative work during your internal prime time. The internal prime time, according to your body clock, when you are most alert and productive.
A final tip for those who travel a lot and have to work during travelling time. If you don't want to get interrupted by someone, who wants to start a conversation, just at the beginning when he/ she asks you "What do you do?" Smile sweetly and reply: "I'm fundraiser for village's culture." This will never fail to terminate any conversation.
