Do You Manage Your Time Effectively?

Effective time management and that of developing a strategy to achieve your goals is of paramount importance in personal development it also demonstrates that time management skills, goal strategy and goal setting are inseparable. The definition of management is really your ability to organize your life, manage your time,control events and people whereas mismanagement is the lack of control of a good time management system.

Simply, control is the key element of time management skills:

Lack of control is directly linked to low personal development in individuals just as those with a high sense of control also have a high personal development capacity.

Your time management techniques are a major strategy. The ability to work smart and organize your life is effective time management and once developed you will control many things which you previously thought were beyond your control, emphasising the importance of time management.

Time shows us that there is one thing that you cannot do with it - make it go backwards. You cannot put back into the ground a flower you have picked, you cannot unsay any word that comes from your lips, you cannot reclaim any minute that slips by without action in your quest for goal achievement. Putting things off rather than getting them out of the way by taking action is a common trait of those who have very low time management skills. They live by the creed 'Never do today what can be put off until tomorrow, good time management is alien to their way of life.

It is a fact that if you keep putting off tasks until the last possible moment not only will you re-in force poor time management skills you will suffer far more stress than those who see a task and handle it immediately - from to day vow that you will organize your life.

Your time is stolen by two major time bandits:

1. Yourself (internal)
2. Others (external)

Hold your hands up! There is one person totally responsible for wasting most of your time and for allowing others to waste your time - YOU!

ONLY YOU CAN CHANGE THIS

There are six major time management skills you have to master that illustrate the importance of planning:-

1 Pursue your goals daily
2 Develop a time management system
3 Organize your life and become totally committed
4 Go public
5 Visualise
6 Start at the end first

The greatest threat to best time management and organizing your life is that of rationalisation. There is one skill that the majority of people who do not know how to manage time have mastered - rationalisation?

The greatest time bandit of all is rationalisation. What is rationalisation, it is when you justify not doing the things you should do to achieve a particular goal.

While it is true that lack of a time management system organizing your life and lack of satisfaction are the offspring of rationalisation, worse of all lack of action will sabotage any pursuit of a goal.

The importance of planning with positive action is the real antidote to rationalisation. Your power will come by visualising and concentrating on all the benefits you will get from good time management.

Strangely the quickest and most effective way to save time before you start your course of action. Ask yourself this question: Simply ask yourself what do you want to achieve in taking the action you are set on taking?

In order to experience effective time management there is a simple thing to do, write your intended result of any situation down before you set off on your course of action, it will help you concentrate and focus on the task in hand.

As John Clare Said: - "...unfortunately you only have one chance at life. How would I correct the proofs if life had a second edition?"