There are many steps to achieving great time management. As you work towards your goals, having some go-to time management rules can be especially helpful! These rules are not meant to be what defines each day. Instead, they are meant to give you an idea of what great time management looks like.
Improving your time management can be a challenging task. There is no clear guide on what it really takes to become a person who is efficient with their time. The great thing about that is that it means that anyone can do it!
With these time management rules, you will find that you have a much better grasp of what great time management looks like! These rules will help guide you if you ever feel your focus drifting. By staying focused on achieving great time management, you will become a much more productive person much faster!
This post is all about rules of time management that will help you stay focused on your goals!
Time Management Rules
Great time management is not something that can be developed in just a couple of days. It takes a conscious effort to start making real changes in your life. Nothing comes easy, and that is especially true for time management.
These 3 rules of time management are rules of thumb that help you understand what is important to time management. By understanding these rules, you will know some of the important keys to improving your time management.
Importance of Time Management
Time management can take your days from unproductive and slow, to fast-paced and efficient. With some small adjustments to your day, you can implement these changes too!
The adjustments that you need to make are relatively easy, but they require significant effort to maintain. For example, to have better time management you need to learn how to use your time effectively. All you really need to do for that is plan your days out a little bit. Nothing has to be detailed, just enough to keep you moving through your days. Even something as simple as the following can work:
- 6:30 AM: Wake up
- 7 AM: Shower
- 8 AM: Breakfast
- 9 AM – 5 PM: Work
- 6 PM: Dinner
- 8 PM: Bed
A basic list like this is all you need! The challenging part of it is continuing to make that list day after day. The biggest key to time management is consistency!
Without good time management you will quickly see your day start to fall apart. Bad time management will cause the day to get away from you and for productivity to suffer. It can be tough to feel like your days are effective if you are struggling to really get much done in an efficient way.
Unless you like the sound of bad time management, it is important to have great time management. As mentioned, time management is not that hard to achieve, it just takes effort!
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Time Management Rules
Time management can be tough to get started with when you aren’t used to it but these rules will help you stay focused on your goals! They are not meant to be something to be strictly followed, just a guide to keep you on track.
1. The 3 P’s of Time Management
The three P’s of time management refer to three words that help you keep in mind the most general necessities of time management. The 3 P’s will help you stay focused on your goals and move towards them. The P’s are as follows:
- Planning: The first P is planning. Planning is relatively simple. It just refers to the need to plan things out in advance to have good time management. If you do not plan well, you will not have any formula to make it through your day. Each day will seem to become inefficient and potentially slow-paced. With good planning, you will find that as one task finishes, the next one takes its place right away. There will be little to no lull between activities and you will be able to get more done. Planning is an important part of the 3 P’s.
- Prioritizing: The next P is prioritizing. Prioritizing refers to deciding on what tasks/activities are important to you and sticking to those. This basically means picking what is or is not important to you as you do your planning for the day ahead. Prioritizing is important because it will help you determine what is important to do next. You need to be able to decide what is important and what is not, and prioritization will accomplish that.
- Performing: Performing is the last of the 3 P’s of time management. You can do all sorts of planning and prioritizing, but if your performance is no good then you have wasted your time. For this reason, performing is the most crucial part of the 3 P’s, because it can quickly prevent your time management changes from properly working out.
2. The 4th P of Time Management
Sometimes a 4th P is thrown into the 3 P’s described above. This P is for Positivity. Positivity may not seem very important, but it is what will keep you focused when you get down. I am sure we have all been in a situation where everything feels like it is not going our way. Depending on how we react from that starting point, the day can change significantly.
Either we can get down on ourselves and give up, or we can be positive and keep pushing forward. Either way, the job has to get done, so being positive is a much better idea. With a positive mindset, you will find that even negative situations seem to be solvable. Give it a try!
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3. The 4 D’s of Time Management
The 4 D’s of time management take a different approach than the 3 (or 4) P’s. These refer more to true time management skills that help you prioritize tasks as they come up. The 4 D’s are important to helping you stay focused by getting the things done that really matter, versus those that are not as important. Check them out below:
- Delete: The first D refers to deleting certain tasks. For example, some things come up that just are not important right now or in the future. This could be something like “needing” to sign up for an email list on a website to get 5% off your next order. In the moment, it may seem important and quick, but is it really necessary? Most of the time, small things like this have no real bearing on our lives and should be deleted from our “to-do” list. This is deleting, and is an important step to focusing on the important stuff!
- Delegate: Delegating refers to passing on certain tasks to others. Maybe you have 2 important things you are trying to do at the same time. You could do both, but it will take all day. If you could delegate by giving one task to somebody else, your day could be made much more efficient and simpler. Be careful not to over-delegate, but use the skill as much as much as you can.
- Defer: Defering is all about pushing things back. Not everything needs to be done right now, and deferring takes care of that. By deferring, you can move things back that could be done just fine in the future. This one is especially effective, as it does not take the task out of your hands, but only moves it. This is not the same as procrastinating unless you continually push off what needs to be done until the deadline arrives.
- Do: Doing is the simplest of the 4 D’s. You just get the job done! Most of the time this is what happens, but do not be afraid to use any of the other 4 D’s if you feel you need to!
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I hope this post taught you more about staying focused on your goals! These easy rules are a great place to start, and you should always keep them in mind. If you have any comments or questions, leave them below or reach out to ourteam@wellroundedyou.com. Thank you for reading!
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