151 Quick Ideas To Manage Your Time
By Robert E. Dittmer
– Keep a log book of your activities over a period of time.
– Prepare your day the night before. Make your preparations the night before so you’re ready to start in the morning.
– Don’t procrastinate. Putting things off is terribly costly.
– 80/20 principal. Place high on your priorities that which is going to yield the most fruit (organizationally or personally).
– ABC Priorities. What must be done now, be done soon, or should wait until later?
– Write down the tasks as you receive them. Some tasks that you receive are verbal, but however they come you should write them down to place on your to-do list.
– Set deadlines for each of your tasks.
– Under-commit and over-deliver. You can’t accept everything, at least not at this moment.
– Create a to-do list and update it daily. It will help you both prioritize your work and keep it in front of you.
– Organize your desk. Being organized will help you be more efficient, so start with your desk. Organization saves time, and time is what we need more of.
– Label your folders (whether digital or paper folders) so that you can easily find what you’re looking for.
– Group tasks together to get more done.
– Block out your most productive time of the day to do and what really needs to be done.
– Use electronic reminders.
– You will minimize distractions if you set office hours.
– Control your email by having set time do you will look at it. If you check it every time you receive a notification, you will be distracted far too often.
– Cell phones are needed, but you don’t have to look at them as much as you do. You do not have to let it stop your conversation or concentration.
– Have an agenda for a meeting. One of the greatest time wasters in a meeting is not having a specific agenda.
– Attend only the meetings that are needed. You cannot attend every meeting if you are going to maximize your time.
– Discover your boss’s work style and adjust yours to that.
– Find a mentor or coach to help you learn more and be more efficient. – Don’t be rude or unaccommodating, but do protect your time.
– Learn to say “no” when things are not aligned with your goals and projects. – Realize that your procrastination is costing you a lot of time.
– Never fear what you don’t know, just learn how to do it so you will become better at your job.
– Interest is not needed to get the job done, determination is. So if you are not interested, then become interested and get the job done.
– Use travel time to catch up on work or to be prepared for when you land. Whether in the airport, on the plane, on a shuttle, or taxi, it’s possible times that you can take advantage and get work done.
– Your time on TV sucks life from time with people. Use your time at home for other things, not just disappearing alone to the television.