Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The Perfect Storm of Time Management


Time can be your friend or your enemy. If you can harness time you can soar to accomplish amazing things. Become a slave to time and you will be lost in the dark.

I have found that I can do a lot more stuff than I used to be able to do in a day. I keep a lot of projects in the air at one time between my job, my book, speaking engagements, family, friends, this blog, reading, writing, staying fit (or close to fit), and other random stuff.

However, sometimes a perfect storm of commitments collide and cause my world to sink into the abyss.

I get overwhelmed and allow important responsibilities to go undone, or to be completed with less than my best effort. This leaves me feeling disappointed and frustrated.

I am trying to become more scheduled. When I am realistic up front about my allotted time I will complete more. If I am left to free flow my calendar I tend to drift along without the right sense of urgency.

Any other time management tips would be appreciated. Remember, everyone who leaves a comment on this blog in February is entered into a drawing to win a prize!! So share a your best ways to lasso the bronco of time.

Have A Great Day.

thom
thom@thomsinger.com

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I struggle with scheduling myself. In my natural state, I prefer to let the day flow and see what happens. Unfortunately, that's not too good for accomplishing goals so I try to reserve that behavior for the weekend.

My latest improvement in scheduling is to go back to a letter-size agenda for my scheduling instead of my PDA (I like the Levenger Circa Agenda). I incorporate my total life in the agenda and have stopped keeping a separate work and home calendar. Besides recording appointments and meetings, I have room to schedule to-dos such as following up with a client. I also record quick notes about what I accomplished that day so I can refer to it later, and I record my daily exercise so I can look back to see if I should be proud or get more committed. For some reason, having the paper laid out in front of me with enough room for notes is more effective at keeping me focused than the small digital screen that I was using before.

Each evening, I take two minutes to write my to-dos for the next day on a post-it note and stick it on my agenda for that day. It helps keep me focused and lets me get productive immediadiately in the morning instead of drifting around for an hour or so.

Best, Erin.