Discover the 5 Crucial Steps to Time Management

I received a phone call the other day from a prospective new customer and it went something like this: Hi, can you tell me do you do time management coaching or do you have a time management course coming up soon? I have a senor manager in our organisation and unless some one gets hold of him and teaches him how to manage his time, prioritise his tasks and stop taking on work from other people, he is going to be in real serious trouble, his whole life is spiralling out of control’

This is more common than we could ever imagine and amazingly enough is as common with senior managers as it is with some one who has just finished college or school and is in their first job.

I do not really understand it, but more and more time management and organisational and planning skills are being needed for people to achieve what they want to achieve. The silly thing about it is that taking control of your work day and your personal life is not hard. The skills needed to manage your time effectively are not rocket science, they are basic common sense. In saying that I remember being taught on a time management course years ago that it is only common sense, but common sense is not that common.

I don’t propose to teach you in one article how to control your workday and your personal life but I am going to focus on a few critical steps you must do on a daily basis.

Start the day with a To Do list

You must start the day with a To Do list - yes I know it is boring but it still works. You must then prioritise the To Do list in order of importance to you and your job role or importance to you and your personal goals.

You must then schedule the highest priority tasks on your list into your diary giving every task a start time and finish time. The next thing you have to do is to try and find quiet time where you are not interrupted to work on the task.

On time management courses people say to me, I cannot find uninterrupted time; well the truth is you have to.  I understand that even though you have told your colleagues you don’t want to be interrupted for 2 hours, they may still interrupt. The skill for you is to manage the interruption effectively so as to limit the damage. Don’t be afraid to tell people you are working on something and cannot give them your attention now, but will have no problem meeting for 5 minutes at the end of the day or over coffee etc.

So for now just try these few critical steps to effective time management. Start the day with a To Do list, then prioritise the tasks on the list in order of importance, schedule the important tasks in to your diary (in other words book appointments with your task) then try and find quiet time to carry out the task, if interruptions happen learn the skills to limiting the damage.

Of course time management training is more than these 5 steps, but these are a start and if you want to avoid being like our senior management friend mentioned earlier in the article, start using these steps from tomorrow and also don’t forget to book yourself on to one of the excellent time management courses that are held all over the world to make sure you get the skills that are critical to your success.

About the Author: Frank O’Toole from Premier Training Courses has been teaching people to discover the skills of time management, how to control their workday and personal life through coaching and training that works.