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Time Management Home
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Get organized and accomplish more with these simple, effective tips
The main barrier to getting organized and productive is the feeling that there are so many things you must do and that all of them are urgent. Rest assured that not everything you have to do is truly urgent. See our homepage article on a simple, but devastatingly effective time management system to help you deal with this issue. One additional note on that article - you can use it for activities around the home just as easily as you can for getting work done in the office or in your business. Simply expand your to do list to include home activities and continue following the system laid out. If you want to, get hold of a day planner. Franklin Covey and many others are pretty good. A simple dairy or notebook will serve you well too. Just pick something that takes your fancy. Interruptions are a major drain on time when you try to get organized. If you are faced with someone who wants to indulge in a chat fest while you are focused on work, just tell him or her that you have many things to get done and that you will be glad to talk to them later. It is up to you to draw the boundaries and set your limits. Else others will eat into your progress. A key step to get organized is to stick to your schedule to the maximum extent possible. Of course, build in a certain flexibility to ensure you can handle extra work that is sure to come up. Complete your tasks / projects at the scheduled time. Leaving tasks half finished is a big hurdle in your effort to get organized. If you have scheduled to finish a portion of a report by 4:00 pm today, make sure you actually complete that portion. If you leave it dangling, not only will you have to spend more time picking up the thread the next time you sit down, you will also end up feeling that you have not accomplished anything at all. Neither of which does any good when trying to get organized. It may help to bread down your time into short chunks. For instance, you will plan to spend 45 minutes at a stretch to complete one portion of that report and then take a 10 minute break. After which you'll spend 15 minutes researching the next portion of the report and 60 minutes writing it. And so on. Be sure to schedule breaks in between. It keeps your productivity high and makes your work more fun. Working for long stretches of time with no break results in fatigue and lower productivity. Have clear end-times in mind for tasks and projects. Every day, review your progress and see how far you have progressed. Or conversely, how much you have veered off track. Keep an eye not only on what you need to do but also on what you have already completed! It's what will give you a feeling of accomplishment. It's a key factor in staying motivated. When you work, focus exclusively on the task at hand. Don't worry about your promotion or whether the dog will soil the couch today or anything else. Just do the current task and you'll accomplish more while beating stress. Even if your to do list seems overwhelming, quit complaining. Instead, do that time management exercise spelt out on the home page and think of creative ways to get the results you want. Create a system of rewards. When you finish a major task, celebrate! Go out to a special dinner, spend time at the beach, spend a special time with your significant other, etc. It's no fun to get organized if you don't enjoy yourself in the process.
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