When people talk about time management or how to manage time to accomplish more, they are not talking about how to manage, organize and change your time. As we all know, time cannot be managed or changed, it’s always 24 hours a day; no more no less.

What time management really means is “the skill to manage your own behaviors toward time.” This skill is particularly important, especially for small business owners. These people are often seen to perform many different activities during the course of a day and many still feel like accomplishing litte at the end of the day. Because of that, many small business people feel tremendous stress.

Here are 6 simple time management tips to help you increase your productivity and reduce stress…

1. Understand that time management is a myth. You need to make a distinction between “clock time” and “psychological time”. The former is real, we’re living by it. We set goals, planning and working to accomplish our goals in the present time. However, many of use fall prey to the psychological time. This is where you become deluded by time, it becomes trapped in your mind. When this happens, your mind becomes preoccupied with the past and future. You have lost the present time!

If you want to be productive with your time, you have got to end this myth or delusion of time; otherwise you will be wasting your time and energy worrying about the past and daydreaming the promise of the future. Tip: the only way to end this myth is to live in your present time or clock time. You set goals in your present time, you do planning in your present time, you implement your plan in the present time, etc. So, always remind yourself to live in the present time.

2. Track your daily activities. Of course I assume that you have goals in life; otherwise you won’t know what you’re supposed to do each day. You have to know what specific tasks are you performing each day that will move you closer to your goals. Tracking your daily activities lets you see where your valuable time is being spent, and gives you the info for optimization and improvements. Whether you use a simple notepad or software program, construct your to-do-list. Write down everything you need to do daily and track them.

3. Prioritize your daily tasks. This will allow you to focus on the most important tasks that will move you closer to your goals. For example, if you’re a small business owner, start your day with a business planning session for 20 to 30 minutes. This will make you to be more focused and organized, and save you time during the day.

4. Learn to delegate or outsource. Do not try to do everything by your own. Doing so will overwhelm very quickly. You will feel stress and tired at the end of the day. Learn to delegate some supporting activities to others so that you can have more time to focus on the most important tasks. That’s why you need to prioritize (step 3) so that you know what can be delegated.

5. Review your to-do-list. Use a highlighter to mark each task that is completed. At the end of each day, review the to-do-list to see how much you have accomplished. Reviewing will allow you to see where you are now and give you a benchmark in which you can track your progress. It also gives you a sense of accomplishment which is important for self motivation.

6. Set a time limit for each task. Some general tasks such as checking and replying emails can take up a chunk of your time. For me, I usually set about 30 minutes to 1 hour each day to check and clear my emails.

Follow the above time management tips religiously if you’re serious about increasing your productivity.  And you will soon find that you are in control of your time instead of trapped by it.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 12:42 am and is filed under Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.