Time Management

Time management first of all involves deciding what to eliminate. We can't do everything, but we can do anything. We have to choose the real priorities in our life and accomplish those things that are important at the expense of those that are relatively unimportant. Although some people may claim that everything is important, that's a rare situation. Important things are those activities that will directly influence the achievement of your goals. Since 95 percent of people don't even have any personal goals in writing, it's unlikely that most of what they do relates to their goals. Most people are flooded with trivia.

So the place to start, if you are to gain control of your time, is to develop some personal goals. Writing them down is not enough. You should actually schedule time in your planner to work on them. A list of goals is like a "to do" list. There's little commitment in a "to do" list. They're simply intentions. A scheduled meeting or appointment always seems to take priority over lists. Scheduled time is a commitment. So I recommend that if your goal is to write a book, for example, you schedule two-hour appointments with yourself to do the actual writing.

What about all the interruptions, crises, changing priorities and demands from others that invariably crop up while you're working on your goal-related activities? Do you simply ignore them? Well, you would try to; but I realize life is not that simple. That's why it's imperative that you schedule only the important, goal-related activities. The only thing that can displace a priority is a higher priority. The more important a task is, the less chance it has of being displaced. For example, it's unlikely you would reschedule open-heart surgery simply because the boss calls a meeting for the same day.

But some things will have to be re-scheduled. To allow for that, make sure you leave open spaces in your planner. Don't schedule too tightly. And always schedule more time than you think the task will take, so you can accommodate those unavoidable interruptions.