Saturday, October 25, 2008

Time Management: Prioritize Your Daily Actions

Many people have trouble fitting everything they would like to do into each day. Modern life can be pretty demanding when it comes to keeping up with our professional and personal commitments, never mind putting some hours aside for leisure time.
However, with a little forethought and a little structure you can make much better use of your time. The secret is to identify what really needs to be done in each day. If you look closely at how you spend your days you will probably find that there are many things that aren't really that important. You need to do whatever it takes to ensure that these never get in the way of the things that really need to be done.
So, at the beginning of each day or even the night before you need to sit down and think about what needs to be achieved from your day. I encourage you to write down the things that must be achieved and you could also make a list of things of lesser importance that maybe you would like to do, but aren't essential.
You need to prioritize the most important things you need to do and schedule them in as the first things you need to do in the day. This is a good idea for two reasons. First, it is good to get the important things done first. Second, you are likely to be more focused and energetic first thing in the day.
The important thing is that you do not allow any interruptions to get in the way of what really needs to be done. Once these tasks have been completed you can then think about other things you may want to do with your remaining time in a more relaxed manner.

2 comments:

Kathleen Coy said...

Good advice, it works. I get more done when I make a to-do list. It's easy to get overwhelmed without one.

kelly o! said...

I definitely am more productive when using a list. Too easy to let time slip away...