Nine Best Time Management Tips

The holidays are behind us and 2011 is almost done. How many projects have we started and how many will we finish? Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management inside out opines the best way to get organised is to channge your perception of time-and I agree.

Here are a few things that work for me:

1. Never start the day without a plan on paper.
2. Chunk related tasks together.
3. Try to do your routine, mindless tasks after lunch when creativity is lower than in mid-morning.
4. When working with telephone calls always have a call list and work the numbers say six calls per hour and just do it.
5. Try to keep your e-mail answering to 3 short sessions, say first thing, then half an hour after lunch and just before closing.
6. Try not to work on computers after eight o'clock at night.
7. Practice Transcendental Meditation, it keeps your brain waves orderly and you're thinking coherent.
8. Learn to say “no.”
9. Try to find good assistance—I know of the existence of VWorker and other online services, but use them very little. Except that I do my programming in Bangalore. So there are many writers that rave about outsourcing everything. You have to be quite clever to do this but it works.

Your Best Time Management Tip

The hols are well behind us and the year is underway. So many projects started! How many will we finish? So I was interested to get news of a time-management approach by Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management Inside Out. She opines the single most important way of organising your life is to change your perception of time. And I agree.

So I want to share with you the most important single time management idea I ever received. Get yourself a shorthand notebook. The one with a line down the middle. Head one side of the page "TO DO" and the other "TO CALL." Jot your tasks in. Use colour. Prioritise. And be about your goals! Here is a pic for you. Sometimes the list is preceded by a mindmap - mind maps help me see the bigger picture.

Work out your own way to prioritise - I like using bullets. Bigger means more important. Fill according to urgency. This way things that start out important but not urgent have big empty circles which get filled in as the deadline approaches. Try it - its fun!

All the most successful people I ever met are terrific list-makers.

And here is the gang from the December

Thinking Skills session in Houghton, South Africa. Hi all!

Our next session is next Tuesday, and, yes, there are a few seats open. Click HERE for info.

Later this year the programme is Perth 20-22 April, Houghton 8-10 June, and 14-16 Sep. Perth 26-28 Oct and and Houghton 7-9 Dec.