Improve Your Life with These Easy Time Management Tips

Do you have too much time in your days? Do you sit around for hours with absolutely nothing to do? Probably not, unless perhaps there is a jail cell involved! Whether you call it "time management skills," or organization, most of us find ourselves wishing for more hours in the day to accomplish everything we want to do at work and at home. I would like to share with you some of my personal strategies, developed over many decades of living and working, that have helped me to get more done each day without getting frazzled, and some of the sources I use to find even more ways to better manage my time.

1. Early to Rise. Duh!! Yes, this is an obvious one, but there's more to it than just setting the alarm earlier. The first thing you need is a plan! What would you do if you had more time in a day? What could you get accomplished that you just never get around to now? Would you meditate? Reconnect with a hobby that has fallen by the wayside? Exercise? Perhaps something as simple as having the time to actually make your lunch!

Once your plan is on paper, prioritize it and decide what you want to work on first. Post the list where you can see it every day. Think about this list several times a day - how would your life improve if you were able to start accomplishing the items on this list?

Set your alarm back a small amount each evening. When I started doing this, I set my clock back one minute each night until I was getting up an hour earlier. The amount doesn't matter - whatever feels good to you. One minute, five minutes, fifteen minutes. If you start worrying about not getting enough sleep or about being too tired during the day, then cut back on the time. But be consistent!

Setting your alarm back 1 minute a day will not affect your sleep or your energy level. But in one month's time, you will be getting up 30 minutes earlier (yes, you should do this on the weekend too - studies have shown many benefits of keeping the same schedule every day of the week). You will have added three and one half hours of time to your week!That's almost ten extra days a year! You may decide that 30 minutes a day is all you need to improve the quality of your life and allow you to accomplish the goals on your list. Or you may decide you need less time or more time!

2. Blur the lines between work and home. If you have an office job, you have probably taken your work home on more than one occasion. Perhaps you are even lucky enough to be able to telecommute from home on occasion. And most of us have made a personal phone call or two while sitting at our desk eating lunch. But are there other ways that you can get more done during the day by blurring the lines between home and work? .

My favorite thing is to keep ONE to-do list! I have found that by doing this, and sorting the items by the amount of time it will take to complete each task, I get much more accomplished both at work and in my personal life. I may make phone calls for work while eating lunch in my car. I keep my chargers with me at all times - in my purse or in my car - so I can recharge my Ipod or cell phone wherever I might be when they need to be recharged!

My briefcase has a "home pocket", where there are bills to be paid, lists to be made, books to return to the library (I often go to the library near my place of work, instead of near my home), etc. I use email to send myself reminders whenever I think of something that needs to be remembered for home or for work.

3. Multitasking. This is almost a cliché, but it can be very effective if done at the right time. You might find that you are more inclined to exercise if you have a really good book to listen to on your Mp3 player. Check your library website to see if they have an audio download program. You can find more details about this idea in my article "Download Audio Books for Free", which you can read HERE.

Other ways to multi-task include always having reading materials with you, so you can read a few pages while sitting in a waiting room or waiting in a checkout line. This may be reading materials that you never seem to get around to reading at work, or it may be the newspaper or a favorite magazine. I use my commute time at least once a week to recharge my cell phone using my cigarette lighter adapter. Dictate ideas or letters into your voice mail system at home or at work.

There is one situation in which you should be very careful about multi-tasking. This is the time you spend behind the wheel of your car. Always keep in mind when driving that multi-tasking should not take your attention from the most important task at hand - watching the road!

4. Maybe "early to bed" and maybe not! Just as many of us think we must eat lunch when the clock says 12 noon, others think they must go to bed at 10 pm "to get enough sleep" before we have to go to work. But we don't really know how much sleep we need and we often toss and turn or sleep lightly if we go to bed before our body and our mind are ready. Millions of dollars are spent on sleep cures annually. White noise, sleep masks, aromatherapy, sleeping pills - you name it, if it helps you sleep, we are buying it!! But the one simple thing that few people try first is to start going to bed when they are actually tired! It may take you a few weeks or months to get into your ideal sleep schedule, but you will get there eventually. You may find that you function better if you go to bed at 9 pm and get up at 4 am. Or you may discover that evenings are the time when you can get more accomplished, and you do quite well on the 6 or 7 hours sleep between midnight to 7 am!

Regardless of when you go to bed, you should always start to "wind down" at least an hour before you think you will need to retire for the night. Not doing so is the primary reason why people can't go to sleep or wake up in the middle of the night. Just before you start this "wind-down time", send yourself an email at work, or make yourself a note, to remind yourself of the things you want to get accomplished tomorrow. Then start to slow your mind and prepare for sleep. You can still get things accomplished, but make them more relaxing things like listening to music, taking a bath, organizing photos for an album, writing in a journal, or meditating.

I hope these ideas will help you make more time for you and the things in your life that are important to you!

Sources

The Daily Mind, http://www.thedailymind.com/mindfulness/is-your-work-life-taking-over-how-to-make-more-time-for-you/

Better Year, Better Life, Better You! http://www.byblby.blogspot.com

Tip Diva - Making Your Life Easier Ten Tips at a Time. http://www.tipdiva.com/