{"id":157,"date":"2017-12-05T19:09:36","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T19:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/?p=157"},"modified":"2025-07-08T19:11:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T19:11:27","slug":"11-time-management-tips-that-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/2017\/12\/05\/11-time-management-tips-that-work\/","title":{"rendered":"11 Time Management Tips That Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>11 Time Management Tips That Work<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>Coming to Grips With the Time Management Myth<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>By <strong>Susan Ward<\/strong> on <strong>Nov\/02\/2017<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/fthmb.tqn.com\/KNebeRJiQoCBAKh2S9kl6yK4OZ8=\/768x0\/filters:no_upscale()\/time-management-57c0895e3df78cc16e5a3623.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Do you feel the need to be more organized and\/or more productive? Do you spend your day in a frenzy of activity and then wonder why you haven&#8217;t accomplished much?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Time management skills are especially important for small business people, who often find themselves performing many different jobs during the course of a single day. These time management tips will help you increase your productivity and stay cool and collected.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Time Management Tips<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>1) Realize that time management is a myth.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>No matter how organized we are, there are always only 24 hours in a day. Time doesn&#8217;t change. All we can actually manage is ourselves and what we do with the time that we have.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>2) Find out where you&#8217;re wasting time.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Many of us are prey to time-wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time bandits? Do you spend too much time &#8216;Net surfing, reading email, Facebook posting, texting, or making personal calls?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"rteindent1\">In a\u00a0survey by salary.com\u00a089 percent of respondents admitted to wasting time every day at work:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>31 percent waste roughly 30 minutes daily<\/li>\n<li>31 percent waste roughly one hour daily<\/li>\n<li>16 percent waste roughly two hours daily<\/li>\n<li>6 percent waste roughly three hours daily<\/li>\n<li>2 percent waste roughly four hours daily<\/li>\n<li>2 percent waste five or more hours daily<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Tracking Daily Activities\u00a0explains how to track your activities so you can form an accurate picture of how much time you spend on various activities, the first step to effective time management.<\/div>\n<div class=\"comp native-placeholder mntl-block\"><\/div>\n<div><strong>3) Create time management goals.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Remember, the focus of time management is actually changing your behaviors, not changing time. A good place to start is by eliminating your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a goal that you&#8217;re not going to take personal phone calls or respond to non-work related text messages while you&#8217;re working.<\/div>\n<div id=\"billboard2-sticky_1-0\" class=\"comp billboard2-sticky billboard-sticky is-lockable\">\n<div class=\"spacer\">\n<div id=\"billboard2-dynamic_1-0\" class=\"comp billboard2-dynamic mntl-gpt-dynamic-adunit mntl-gpt-adunit gpt billboard dynamic is-requested\">\n<div id=\"billboard2\" class=\"wrapper\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>4) Implement a time management plan.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Think of this as an extension of the third tip. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to achieve whatever general goal you&#8217;ve set for yourself, such as increasing your productivity or decreasing your stress. So you need to not only set your\u00a0specific goals,\u00a0but track them over time to see whether or not you&#8217;re accomplishing them.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>5) Use time management tools.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Whether it&#8217;s a Day-Timer or a software program, the first step to physically managing your time is to know where it&#8217;s going now and planning how you&#8217;re going to spend your time in the future. A software program such as Outlook, for instance, lets you schedule events easily and can be set to remind you of events in advance, making your time management easier.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>6) Prioritize ruthlessly.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>You should start each day with a session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark.<\/div>\n<div id=\"billboard3-sticky_1-0\" class=\"comp billboard3-sticky billboard-sticky is-lockable\">\n<div class=\"spacer\">\n<div id=\"billboard3-dynamic_1-0\" class=\"comp billboard3-dynamic mntl-gpt-dynamic-adunit mntl-gpt-adunit gpt billboard dynamic is-requested\">\n<div id=\"billboard3\" class=\"wrapper\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>If you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them do you truly need to accomplish?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>7) Learn to delegate and\/or outsource.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>In my experience, delegation is one of the hardest things to learn how to do for many business owners, but no matter how small your business is, there&#8217;s no need for you to be a one-person show \u2014 you need to let other people carry some of the load.\u00a0Determining Your Personal ROI\u00a0explains two ways to pinpoint which tasks you&#8217;d be better off delegating or outsourcing, while\u00a0Decide to Delegate\u00a0provides tips for actually getting on with the job of delegating.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>8) Establish routines and stick to them as much as possible.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>While crises will arise, you&#8217;ll be much more productive if you can follow routines most of the time.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-content-block-last\">\n<div><strong>9) Get in the habit of setting time limits for tasks.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>For instance, reading and answering email can consume your whole day if you let it. Instead, set a limit of one hour a day for this task and stick to it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>10) Be sure your systems are organized.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>Are you wasting a lot of time\u00a0looking for files on your computer? Take the time to\u00a0organize a file management system. Is your filing system slowing you down?\u00a0Redo it, so it&#8217;s organized to the point that you can quickly lay your hands on what you need.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>11) Don&#8217;t waste time waiting.<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>From\u00a0client meetings\u00a0to dentist appointments, it&#8217;s impossible to avoid waiting for someone or something. But you don&#8217;t need to just sit there and twiddle your thumbs. Technology makes it easy to work wherever you are; your tablet or smartphone will help you stay connected. You can be reading a report, checking a spreadsheet, or\u00a0planning your next marketing campaign.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><strong>Your Time Belongs to You<\/strong><\/div>\n<div>You\u00a0<strong>can<\/strong>\u00a0be in control and\u00a0accomplish what you want to accomplish\u00a0\u2014 once you&#8217;ve come to grips with the time management myth and taken control of your time.<\/div>\n<div>\n<hr \/>\n<div>Originally published on\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebalance.com\/time-management-tips-2947336\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">thebalance.com<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11 Time Management Tips That Work Coming to Grips With the Time Management Myth By Susan Ward on Nov\/02\/2017 Do you feel the need to be more organized and\/or more productive? Do you spend your day in a frenzy of activity and then wonder why you haven&#8217;t accomplished much? Time management skills are especially important &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/2017\/12\/05\/11-time-management-tips-that-work\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">11 Time Management Tips That Work<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/nsls\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}