Yesterday we announced our Contest Winners in our Time Management Contest. Today, for the Top 10 Tips Tuesday, we wanted to give you some time management tips.

Be Free!

1. Work on your Highest Priority Task Durning Your Peak Performance Time

Schedule demanding tasks to the part of the day that you work best, where your energy levels are at their highest. It maybe first thing in the morning or early afternoon – work out when it is and then see yourself moving ahead.

For me, I am most productive in the morning. I schedule all of my “high brain” activates such as writing and planning at that time. I save administrative tasks for the afternoon.

2. Check Your Email on a Schedule

It’s not effective to read and answer every email as it arrives. Just because someone can contact you immediately does not mean that you have to respond to him or her immediately. People want a predictable response, not an immediate response. So as long as people know how long to expect an answer to take, and they know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer most types of email just a few times a day.

One of our instructors at Freedom Personal Development actually lists when she checks and responds to email in the bottom of her signature. You can also set up an auto responder that states when people can expect a reply.

3. Ask Someone who is Efficient – What their Secret is?

Ask the most efficient person you know what their secret is and how did they develop these habits. Then see if it will work for you. Make sure it isn’t someone who is efficient just at work, but in their entire life. They get tasks done ahead of schedule and still has time to spend with family, work out and take vacations without stressing out.

If you want to go right to the source of time management mastery, check our Brian Tracy’s program, How to Master Your Time. Brian will give you so many strategies to impore your efficiency you can pick and choose the ones that work best for you.

4. Don’t Allow Anyone to Take Your Time from You

Set up boundaries around your time. If you are stopped in the hall for a conversation or someone barges into your office, ask for this person to arrange a meeting with you (if appropriate); don’t allow co-workers to infringe on your home time; if someone is late for an appointment and haven’t contacted you – give them 15 minutes past the appointed time and then move on. It is up to you as to how you allow other people to use your time!

5. Create Daily Task Lists with Scheduled Times

If you don’t know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done.

To really ramp up your to-do list, actually schedule time when you will be focused on each task and nothing else. Think of this as budgeting your time. Make sure to schedule “catch up time” for items that may take longer than you expected or to schedule any interruptions in your day.

6. Eat the Elephant One Bite at a Time

Break down each big project into sub-actions: For example, if you need to send out a marketing email, break that up into: a)Write email draft, b)edit email text, c)layout email, and d)send. When you break down projects into smaller tasks, they become more manageable, and you can allot a realistic time frame for getting the project completed.

7. Learn How To Say No

In all honesty, there are times where you may not be able to refuse a project at work or a task at home, but try to not take on more than you can accomplish. If you must, look into using outside help. In your business or the workplace, this outside help can come from another company, someone you met at a networking event or look at doing a skills exchange like……….you may be able to provide a service in return for whatever.

Rather than trying to do it all yourself – sometimes all you have to do is ……ASK!

8. Practice Delegating Tasks and Assignments

An effective manager of time recognizes that our use of time in certain areas is truly wasted. There are some tasks that others could accomplish for us and thus allowing us to focus on those things of more importance. It might be useful to allow our children to wash the dishes or gather up the dirty clothes. It could improve work related assignments by sharing them with others who are capable of doing them. It also helps build character in others when we demonstrate a trust in their ability to do something normally performed by us.

No doubt there will be those in the workplace who simply view this as a passing of the buck or more workload for them. However, if we treat individuals respectfully, demonstrating our confidence in their abilities, they will be more readily open to helping out for the benefit of everyone. Are there tasks at work or at home that can be delegated to other employees or other family members? Can we train someone else to take on a role or responsibility normally performed by us? Why not consider it and share the work load?

9. Consider Hiring Professional Help

As previously stated, if you are overwhelmed at home, you may want to call on a professional housecleaner or gardener or use the Supestore home delivery services it doesn’t matter what tricks you use to free up more time.

10. Move Your TV to another Room

What ever room in your house the TV that you watch the most is in, move the TV someplace else. This will cut your the habit of sitting down and watching the boob tube. Try just cutting out at least two hours of viewing time and work on more important tasks.

Sources:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/8_Simple_Steps_to_Improve_Your_Time_Management.html
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Sullivan1.html 
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/12/10/10-tips-for-time-management-in-a-multitasking-world/