Can’t meet deadlines? Feel like there are so many things to do yet so little time? Feeling very stressed and yet as if you have not done much after a whole day’s work?

You just might be suffering from lack of time management. Time management is a skill that can be learned through time and constant practice… as long as you are determined to acquire it. And I assure you, if you will take this advice seriously, you will like the result and never look back. In fact, it might even be the key to your personal and professional success!

How do you go about it?

First, know your priorities. Make a list of your life’s priorities from the most important  to the least important – both in the personal and professional facets of your life.

Second, from your list of priorities, make a long term plan, say, what you want to achieve for one year.  

Third, make a shorter plan of, say, six months or a third of a year – based on your long-term plan.

Fourth, make a daily planner – where you will make a daily commitment towards the achievement of your medium and long-term goals. 

Additional guides in making your effort effective:

1)    Never lose sight of your goal- or your long-term plans. If possible, have a visual aid of those plans pinned on your board or pasted on your desk.

2)    Focus on your efforts to realize your plans. Overcome procrastination. It is like an acid that slowly eats up your resolve to do what you need to do, if you give in to procrastination little by little.

3)    Make a matrix of your plans and your developments, and remember to refer to it from time to time.

4)    Evaluate / assess after every short-term plan and see where you have gone so far. And make another short-term plan for the next short-term goal.

5)    Be flexible yet firm in setting and working out your plans. For sure, there are people and circumstances which will force you to make adjustments on your list of priorities for the month or for the day. If somebody makes a request which you think you cannot accommodate and which is not that important anyway, learn to say ‘no’, and stand by your decision.

6)    Reward yourself for every success that you’ve done in the process of implementing your plans. Say, a visit to the hairdresser or a foot spa or an ice cream if you think you have done something in the pursuit of your plans and you deserve a little ‘pat in the back’.

7)    Think positive! Great men have said that nothing is ever achieved with negative thoughts and ideas.      

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