Time Doctor’s Top Ten Time Management Tips

1. Delegate

Where you can hire someone else to do it, hire them. When you can ask someone else to do it, ask them. Don’t be ashamed. You’re busy, you’re hard working and you deserve it.

2. Automate

If something can be made to happen automatically, without you having to do something about it, you’ll save valuable time. Not only will it be done for you, but you won’t even need to remember to do it.

3. Use your computer and your PDA to the fullest

The most important concept of being organized is having things at your fingertips. Making use of a Blackberry PDA or a palm PDA and associated day timer programs like Microsoft Outlook on your handheld device, you always know your schedule and what needs to be done. The tasks function of this program allows you to keep a running tally or “to do” list that you can take with you anywhere.

4. Do it now, NOT later

Baltasar Gracian wrote, “A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times”. It’s the proverbial plague of procrastination that so often gets us all. Its simple to avoid and just a matter of sticking to your guns. If you could do it now, do it now. Don’t put it off. You’ll only make that “to do” list that much longer.

5. If you think of something that you need to do, write it down in the same place every time

Keeping a list of things to do is very important. This list should be comprehensive and should contain simple everyday things, as well as bigger or more long term tasks. Add to the list whenever you something crosses your mind that should be done. A central list like this allows you to tackle items when you have time and keeps them in the forefront of your mind so you don’t forget them. Ideally, the list should be kept electronically so it can be portable. If not an electronic list, a hard copy in the form of a notebook or whiteboard would also work well.

6. Have a place for everything and keep everything in its place

There’s nothing worse than needing something right now, and not being able to find it! You can of course, avoid this, by having specific areas designated for specific items in your house. Make sure everyone in the family knows the system so they can be sure to return a given item to its rightful home.

7. Honour your “planning day”

Pick one evening of the week or a slot of time on the weekend that will be your planning and paperwork day. Stick to it. Use this time to look at the week and make all the arrangements that need to be made during that time.

8. Get an “In Box” and put a simple filing system in place

This is a box that is kept in a central location in the house that serves as the temporary home for paperwork that needs to be looked at. Essentially it becomes the place that things get tidied to, in a rush until you have time to go through it properly. Once a week on “planning day”, you go through the in-box and address all of the items or paperwork in detail. It helps to have individual upright filing trays (individual in-boxes) in your office space for each person in the household into which papers can be placed from the central in-box. Actual filing, per se, can then be limited to every 6 to 8 weeks.

9. Learn to be comfortable with saying no

We’ve all heard this time and time again. Its importance can’t be stressed enough. Only you know your limits and it is critically important that you stick to them. In the end, people will understand and respect you even more, for realizing that you really can only do so much.

10. Choose a “Do No Work” Day

Pick a day on the weekend that without fail is always, consistently filled only with things that you want to do. This may be time for you alone, time with the family all together or time alone with your spouse. Do not sacrifice this day, or fill it with either home or work related chores, no matter what.