You don’t have TIME to read this do you?

• I wish I had more time!
• There aren’t enough hours in my day!
• I really need to make more time!
• If I do this, I will save so much time
• I’ll do this when I get round to it!
• My time just runs away with me!

I bet you’ve said at least one of the above at some point in your life, haven’t you?

The thing is we all have the same amount of hours in the day, it’s how we make use of it that matters.

We all have good intentions of starting, stopping, do less of or more of ‘tomorrow’. But unfortunately tomorrow never comes, and so it goes on.

At times feel we have wasted so much time in our day and feel so unproductive at the end of a day and yet never ‘stop’ to consider why we weren’t productive or how we might make changes to make best use of our time. Usually it’s because we are all just too busy.

However, I would suggest that being busy is an excuse!

To introduce steps to make more effective use of your time and eliminate ‘time-wasting’ activities you could become more proactive than reactive as well as start working smarter not harder. When you make effective changes and introduce positive steps to value your time more you will definitely start noticing the difference.

There is however, one step that needs to take place before we can start making better use of our time and that’s to understand just HOW to make positive changes in our business and / or personal life.

Here are SIX tips you can introduce now if you want to make better use of time:

1. Understand the difference between important and urgent activities (Eisenhower matrix)
   1. Start eliminating those activities in your life that derail you before you start you day
   1. Introduce time at the beginning and end of your day to start planning the day ahead and reviewing how well each day went
   1. Prioritise your time by using a weekly planner and introduce daily reviews
   1. Keep a tidy desk and clear any other applications on your desktop
   1. Try and focus on one task at a time and be aware of other distractions

If you are interested in receiving help and support in managing your time better as well as having an accountability buddy – please contact Debs for details of the next time management seminar OR one-to-one time management support to get your time back on track.

Take time out now to make those changes in your life to work smarter not harder.

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