A Simple but Overlooked Time Management
Strategy:
Meet Your Deadlines!
Properly managing your time can help you
to effectively produce more results, increase your
free time, and lower your stress levels. One key component
of time management that we are going to cover in today's
article revolves around getting into the habit of
meeting your deadlines.
Can you recall back in high school or college where
you knew you had a major test or exam coming, but
waited until the last minute to study for it? Instead
of pacing yourself and chipping away at learning the
information for the test day-by-day, you waited until
the very night before the test and pulled an “all-nighter”
in order to cram all of the information in. Ironically
enough, this type of behavior leads to poor productivity
and of course, loss of sleep!
There are many men and women in business that treat
their projects much like the “all-nighter”
example above. They are assigned an important job
and let the assignment sit and sit until they are
literally racing the clock to get the work completed
on time for the boss. And what is the typical end
result? A project that is faulty with mistakes as
well as unwanted stress caused by the delay. In addition,
your time will be squeezed thin even more for other
tasks that are pushed to the limit because of your
reckless time management skills
There is of course, a better way to handle your priorities,
that will not involve stress,
loss of sleep, and poorly finished projects. And that
better way is simple: Start on your work assignments
as soon as you receive them. If your boss gives you
a report or a project to have finished by a certain
date, then do not wait until the last minute to start
working on it. Start immediately! In fact, start planning
that day. The same goes if you are self employed.
Actually, being self employed means that we must totally
master this habit of meeting personal deadlines or
else our business will sink.
You can start to take action on any given project
by creating a separate project list and break down
the assignment into sections. Now take out your planner
and assign a section for each day, or however you
see fit. For example, you may have a project that
will take you a total of 10 hours to complete, but
the deadline is not for another five days. Most procrastinators
and time-wasters will wait until the day before the
deadline. Instead, your goal is to schedule small
chunks to be completed one at a time. Perhaps you
can schedule this report to be worked on 2 hours a
day for the next five days. Or maybe you want to break
it up into hour segments. Any which way you choose
will work, so long as you work your plan.
Although this advice is merely common sense, you
would be surprised as to how many men and women are
ruined by putting off their tasks until near the end
of the deadline. By breaking this habit you can start
working on them long before they are due and the quality
of your work will reign supreme. Time management is
not at all complex to integrate into your life, it
simply takes discipline.
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