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Managing Time to Accomplish More
by Elena Fawkner
Time is inelastic. Despite what some of us persist in believing, it will
NOT magically expand to accommodate all we have to do. So, in order to
maximize the time we have available, we have to spend it wisely. Here's
how to do that.
STRUCTURE YOUR TIME
The very first thing to do is understand the structure of your time. If
you think of the time you have available as some amorphous dimension,
you will fritter it away on this and that without any real consideration
of what is the best use of the time available. How many times have you
got to the end of your day and felt like you'd accomplished nothing even
though you'd been "busy" all day.
All time is not equal. If you're a morning person, your morning time is
worth more in terms of productivity than your late afternoon time.
So think of time as variable in terms of potential for accomplishment
and identify your most valuable time. Do the same for your
intermediate-value time and your lower-value time.
Reserve your most valuable time for your most intellectually demanding
activities. Your intermediate value time should be spent on important
tasks that don't require quite the same level of concentration. Finally,
reserve your low-value time for activities that don't require much in
the way of concentration.
Now, obviously, if you have a full-time job away from the home, the
decision of how to spend your 9 to 5 hours will largely be out of your
hands. So, the best you can do if you're a morning person is to try and
take care of some of your intellectually demanding activities first
thing in the morning, say between 5:00 am and 7:00 am. On the other
hand, if you're a night owl, working a full-time job probably won't be
much of a problem for you.
If you run your own business from home, however, effectively structuring
your time in terms of peak, intermediate and low-concentration blocks
can make a profound impact on your productivity if you use that time
intelligently.
IDENTIFY WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
Now that you have some sense of how to best structure your time, you
need to turn to what, exactly, you're going to spend that time on.
That means identifying what you have to do. And that means identifying
what you don't have to do as the flipside.
When identifying what you have to fit in to your schedule, think about
all areas of your life. Making time for yourself is not something that
you get around to only if there's time left over. Making time for
yourself is as much a priority as anything else.
A good way of identifying activities that should be included in your
schedule is to test them against the criteria of furtherance of an
objective. If the activity does nothing to further any objective, why
are you even doing it?
So start by identifying objectives for your life. Consider categories
such as health, finance, business/career, spiritual, family, social,
intellectual and so on. Establish objectives for every area of your life
that's important to you.
Everything you do should bring you closer to an objective. If it
doesn't, again, why do it?
ALLOCATE YOUR ACTIVITIES
Now that you know how to best structure your time and what activities
are going to lead you closer to your objectives, it's time to allocate
those activities against the time you have available and in accordance
with your various concentration levels.
Begin by estimating how much time each activity in your day is likely to
take. Be realistic about what you can really accomplish in one day. If
you overload yourself you're only going to stress out about what you're
NOT doing and that makes you less effective
in what you ARE doing. So, pace yourself. Just don't WASTE time.
Assign your most intellectually demanding activities to your peak
concentration time. This may be writing a chapter of your e-book or
writing an article for the next issue of your ezine. Assign your less
concentration-intensive activities to your intermediate concentration
time. This may be redesigning a web page or reading and responding to
email, for example. Finally, assign your truly "no concentration
required" activities to your low concentration periods. If you've
allocated time to exercising, this would be a good time to do a workout.
GROUP LIKE TASKS
Grouping like tasks will allow you to accomplish more in the same amount
of time. It is much more efficient to run three errands while you're out
and about rather than making three separate trips.
Similarly, it's more time-efficient to run one large load of laundry
rather than two separate, smaller loads. So give some thought to these
mundane sorts of activities too. There's always a way to shave off a bit
of time by grouping similar activities and doing them in one hit.
Email's another prime example. Far more efficient to check and respond
to mail twice a day than to read and respond to each message as and when
it comes in, thereby distracting yourself from what you were doing in
the first place.
By thinking about what you have to do and scheduling those tasks in
conformity with your concentration levels as well as grouping like
activities, you will naturally make the most effective use of the time
available. Your productivity will increase proportionately.
About the author
Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based Business Online ... practical
business ideas, opportunities and solutions for the work-from-home
entrepreneur
www.ahbbo.com
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