How often have we said, “I haven’t got time”; “I don’t have enough time”; “I lost time” and many other statements we make when the reality is we all have the same hours in the day, we can’t bank it or save it. We can however waste it by not making the best use of our present time.
Time Management IS and should be part of our self-care.
We only have one life, time is very precious and a limited resource and one which should be used wisely, making use of the present more than ‘later – later – later’, which often means never doing them.
Do you want to reach old-age feeling you’ve lived a life of regrets?
When you fear taking yourself out of your comfort zone and moving into new pastures and feel nervous about taking these steps into the unknown. Stop for a moment and consider looking back in years to come remembering you considered doing something and then didn’t – what is best to have tried and failed or not to have tried at all. “It’s better to have tried and failed than to live a life wondering what would have happened if I’d tried” Alfred Lord Tennyson
Consider time as your friend and not your enemy, work with it, not against it. Invest your time in managing your time better. Consider using tools, apps, accountability buddy, something that will help you take care of you better. Investing in you is investing in your self-care.
What does good time management look like?
Planning – we need to plan our time, be more proactive rather than reactive; this means planning our days and weeks ahead and not doing things ‘on the hoof’ which only creates disorganised and unproductive days; give ourselves time to do the things that matter most and are the most important or urgent
Prioritise – we need to avoid procrastination, identify time-wasters, those ‘things’ that distract us from our main task or goal; we know what they are, we just don’t do anything about them, often saying “that’s just the way I’ve always been” or “that’s just the way I am”; we can change and we can do things better, we just need to start
Habits – we need to remove bad habits and replace them with good habits, and we can do that by drawing a line in the sand and starting the way we mean to go on by making a concerted effort in spending our days and time wisely and productively
Goals – we need to choose our goals sensibly, considering why we want the goal in the first place and what is it going to give us; where will we be when we achieve it; what will it feel like; but first we need to set them, write them down and keep them visible and create actions in our days to achieve them
“If a goal is worth having, it’s worth blocking out the time in your day-to-day life necessary to achieve it.” Jill Koenig
Time management shouldn’t be seen as a laborious task but something we can do to better take care of ourselves and something which ultimately will enable us to manage our time more effectively so we can achieve what matters most. And remember it also makes the process to get there more enjoyable.
If you feel your time management isn’t as good as it could be – contact Debs at Success Factor and ask about her “It’s All About Time” seminar or about time management sessions to help you keep on track and embed great time management tools into your days.
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