These Are the Moments of Your Life

Making the Most of Your Time

IN THIS ISSUE... 10 Tips for Time Management Prioritized To Do Lists Action Plans Small Scale Planning Time Management Matrix Internet Sites on Time Management Books on Time Management

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Time Management
1. Make a list, prioritize and check things off as you get them done. 2. Review your list from time to time. Is everything on that list necessary? 3. Ask yourself, Whats the best use of my time right now? Then do it! 4. Be willing to sacrifice perfection to get things done. 5. Learn to say no to demands that dont benefit you. 6. Arrange your work time to keep interruptions to a minimum. 7. Be realistic about what you can accomplish during a given period. 8. When is your energy at its peak? Plan your work for those times and use your less energetic times for leisure or a nap. 9. Whenever possible, delegate! 10. Dont waste time on minor decisions.

10 TIPS FOR

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule states that typically 80% of unfocused effort generates only 20% of results, and that the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort.

80/20

PRIORITIZED TO DO LISTS

A To Do List is a list of all the tasks that you need to carry out. It consolidates all the jobs that you have to do into one place. You can then prioritize these tasks into order of importance. This allows you to tackle the most important ones first. To Do Lists are essential where you need to carry out a number of different tasks or different sorts of task, or where you have made a number of commitments. If you find that you are often caught out because you have forgotten to do something, then you need to keep a To Do List. While To Do Lists are very simple, they are also extremely powerful, both as a method of organizing yourself and as a way of reducing stress. Often problems may seem overwhelming or you may have a seemingly huge number of demands on your time. This may leave you feeling out of control, and overburdened with work.

PREPARING A TO DO LIST
The solution is often simple: write down the tasks that face you, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until you have listed everything that you have to do. Once you have done this, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important) to F (unimportant). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order. You will then have a precise plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face. You will be able to tackle these in order of importance. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones.

USING YOUR TO DO LISTS

Different people use To Do Lists in different ways in different situations: if you are in a sales-type role, a good way of motivating yourself is to keep your list relatively short and aim to complete it every day. In an operational role, or if tasks are large or dependent on too many other people, then it may be better to keep one list and chip away at it. It may be that you carry unimportant jobs from one To Do List to the next. You may not be able to complete some very low priority jobs for several months. Only worry about this if you need toif you are running up against a deadline for them, raise their priority. If you have not used To Do Lists before, try them: they are one of the keys to being really productive and efficient.

The Moments of Your Life

The Time Management MATRIX

U RGENT I. I M PORTANT II. NOT U RGENT NOT I M PORTANT III. IV.

Action Plans Small Scale Planning

An Action Plan is a list of tasks that you have to carry out to achieve an objective. It differs from a To Do List in that it focuses on the achievement of a single goal. Wherever you want to achieve something, draw up an action plan. This allows you to concentrate on the stages of that achievement, and monitor your progress towards it. To draw up an Action Plan, simply list the tasks that you need to carry out to achieve your goal. This is simple, but still very useful!

THE FOUR TIME ACTIVITY QUADRANTS

This is called the Time Management Matrixdont let it scare you, its really quite friendly. There are four quadrants, or squares, related to the different kinds of tasks and responsibilities that consume the majority of our time. Lets talk about each of the quadrants for a minute. First, notice the labels at the top and on the left side of the four quadrantsat the top are the labels Urgent and Not Urgent, and on the left are the labels Not Important and Important. Quadrant Ithis square contains the events, activities, and responsibilities that are both Important and Urgent. These are things that might be considered high priority. We will see some examples of each of the quadrants on the next slide. Quadrant IIthis square is composed of those life events that are Important but not Urgent. These are things that are a definite priority, but they dont have to be done right now.

KEY POINT:
An Action Plan is a list of things that you need to do to achieve a goal. To use it, simply carry out each task in the list!

Quadrant IIIthe events in this square are Not Important but for whatever reason they seem Urgent. This can be an area for potential problems, because we may spend far more time on these events than they warrant. The essence of procrastination is reflected Quadrant IVitems represented in this square are neither Important nor Urgent. Realistically, they should be discarded; unfortunately, many people spend large amounts of time on the trivial. in this quote by Bernard Meltzer:

Take a few minutes and categorize each of your current responsibilities, assignments, schedule, and your various roles in life in one of the four quadrants. This will give you a quick snapshot of those things or relationships that are top priority and those things which realistically could be discarded. The Moments of Your Life

Hard work is often the easy work you did not do at the proper time.

Internet Sites on Time Management

Big Times (contains numerous short tips) http://www.bigtimes.co.uk/ The Learning Commons http://www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca/learning/fastfax/lasttm.htm Mind Tools (time management page) http://www.mindtools.com/page5.html Harold Taylor Time Consultants (contains several articles) http://www.taylorontime.com/articles/freeartic.html The Time Management Guide http://www.time-management-guide.com/

Books on Time Management

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How to Create a More Peaceful, Simpler Life from the Inside Out by Richard Carlson First Things First: To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy by Stephen R. Covey Time Management from the Inside Out: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule and Your Life by Julie Morgenstern Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy Checklists for Life: 104 Lists to Help You Get Organized, Save Time, and Unclutter Your Life by Kirsten M. Lagatree The Complete Idiots Guide to Managing Your Time (2nd Edition) by Jeffrey P. Davidson, Jeff Davidson, Bob Losure

Workable Wellness is a program developed by North Carolina Cooperative Extension to provide you with information and strategies to enhance the quality of your life. For further information, contact your local Cooperative Extension Office.