How To Manage Your Time Effectivly

Here are the necessary pre-requisites to help you manage your time effectively:

• 1. Think of goals and aims as necessary achievements. In achieving your desired goals, you should start with a positive outlook. You must be excited with the challenges and tasks that you have to do to give you the right start or motivation. However, you should also see the path towards your goals in concrete terms. These achievements or aims can be reached by becoming realistic and by knowing your directions. Think of the scenarios of success but you should also recognize the fact that these roads have to be traversed in a given time. This way, you are not only looking at the possibility of success, but you are also giving yourself the right motivation and the proper time to prepare for a fresh start and achieve your goals at the soonest possible time.
   
• 2. Think of the time frame in achieving goals and aims. You are to do a task at a particular time. As you begin planning your strategies, you must also look forward and recognize your time frames in doing such tasks. Time frames are the periods you are giving yourself to finish a task. These are just estimates or approximations since you are not the sole factor that will contribute in finishing the given task. Be wary of the processes in your environment; for example, if you are to write a book or an article, consider the time you are giving yourself for this activity. However, since you are also doing other things, you cannot devote your entire time in doing the said endeavor. Finally, think of the flow of things or the movement of time in your daily life as you move forward in achieving your desired goals. Think of your other activities that might affect the time factor in finishing given tasks. You might be spending too much time on a very idle activity (like too many late night parties or soires or a whole day in front of your computer playing online games) that will give you less time to go on with your plan towards self-fulfillment and success.
   
• 3. Be realistic and expect changes. Time Management involves flexibility and open-mindedness. Do not expect that you can finish a task in what youve considered as your time frame unless everything is laid down perfectly. You should allot some allowance in your time frame, probably for the sake of the unforeseen or unexpected circumstances. Remember that contradicting factors bring development so dont be upset with these changes since everything is undergoing a sort of a synthesis. For example, you already made your business plan and a lot of careful considerations have been completed, including the period in which you expect your business to give you financial and personal satisfaction. However, during the course of execution or theory application, there are other factors or changes, which you have not included in your feasibility study. In this case, time should not be wasted in complaining about things or about people surrounding your path. Instead of becoming immobile or paralyzed with the situation, cope up and be flexible by accepting such changes. Level the playing field with innovative strategies based on the situation and knowledge you will acquire from your experience in doing the task. Maximize your time by examining your errors and by moving on with solutions that will sustain whatever efforts you have given to traverse difficult situations and challenges. 
• 4. Know your work style. You are a time clock too. You work with your habits, your cycles, and bodily rhythms. You sleep, eat, exercise, read a book, or cook with either efficiency or a sloppy lifestyle. Of course you wouldnt want to be caught like a snail and be crushed with pressures because of limited time, so it would be better if you will give yourself some time to think about yourself. Know how fast you can work on things. And if its not as good as others, try to make some improvements. This may be difficult since habits and lifestyles have become personal markers themselves that give you the idea of your daily routines or tasks. Taking three meals a day will remind you of other things you must do after eating like brushing your teeth or going to the toilet or having a 15-minute nap. Your sleeping habits and work efficiency are based on what youve grown-up with as an individual you may either stay late at night or sleep early, as what youve been taught or what your household has been doing since youre a child. Finally, examine yourself and know how fast you can work on things, like typing or encoding words in a computer, filing office data, writing a term paper, or even reading a book. You dont need to know the exact time but at least, you will have an approximate measurement of how long you can finish such task.
   
• 5. Know your environment or workplace. Your house has a time of its own, your office has schedules, and your neighborhood has activities to offer. You are surrounded by these time schedules. It would be better if you would be conscious of the time flow in your surroundings. The daily tasks in your house are definitely main factors in determining your personal time. More so, your working hours are defined by the nature of your work and your workplace. The activities by the people around you may affect your strategies and daily endeavors. Finally, you are not alone in your workplace and other people are also wary of their time and schedules. All of these would affect your time frames and you must be in-synched with all of these to manage your limited time hassle-free.
   
• 6. Make Plans. Planning, like in any other preparations, is a way of saving time for errors. Mistakes usually happen because of unexpected and unforeseen factors such as wrong estimates of resources or the entry of new variables in solving a problem. However, with the proper plan and preparation, these unforeseen circumstances can be expected as well as minimized. In such way, you may still finish the task in a given time.

By considering the above-mentioned factors, you are not only giving yourself a period to reflect on how time flows in your life. You are also recognizing the factor that affects time and its fluidity.

You will not be drowned because of the seemingly uncontrollable flow but you can now swim with the waves that time brings about.