Time Management Tip
Time To ROCK

Be patient, the ultimate time management tip is about to be unveiled.

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Time management skills can help you make the most effective, efficient use of your time. The good time manager is not necessarily the person who gets the most done. Rather, the good time manager is a "macro time manager" who knows the activities that contribute most to his or her long-term life development.

Time management enables a person to minimize the stress of work overload and to prioritize work and leisure time activities. Organizing and prioritizing may be the two most important time management tip skills for successful people managing very busy activity schedules.

Organize and Prioritize
A typical time management tip would be that time management only has to do with making up a good "to do" list and following through. Right? Not really. This time management tip has a lot more to do with what we are NOT doing rather that what we ARE doing.

Good Time Management requires that we get what we "have to" get done but, more importantly, what we "want to" get done.

This requires balancing our lives in all of life's Seven Vital Areas: Health, Family, Financial, Intellectual, Social, Professional, and Spiritual. If we are out of balance on one (never mind two or three!) it is going to adversely impact on the other legs. This is where we organize and prioritize.

Prioritize - I start most days with a good "to do" list! Possibly I am not - very organized. If I don't make out that list, I get sidetracked. Categorizing my tasks by priorities eliminates a lot of wasted time. If you always start with the number one priority on the list and work your way down to the least, you will be accomplishing the most important tasks for yourself and your business.

That list should include what we are NOT doing, i.e. exercising, spending time with loved ones, spiritual growth. In the past, I was considered a workaholic. I was determined that if there were obligations to be met, they had to be met today!

Through many mistakes, and disappointments I came to realize that the tools for increasing productivity there lied in a complete well rounded lifestyle.

I did some research on REMs (rapid eye movement) sleep. If you get twenty minutes of aerobic exercise a day, you will enter into REMs sleep. This is the fifth stage of sleep, where you dream. You can get by with less hours of sleep, because you are getting better quality of sleep. What a concept!

I could exercise for an hour and get by with two or three hours less sleep. The real bonus was that I felt more energetic and coherent. So guess what was first on my time management tip list of priorities?

How about your diet? Fatty foods and junk food tend to be the diet of people with busy lifestyles. Again, I researched information on the outcome of productivity related to diet. Guess what the outcome was?

Sugar and fatty foods slow your metabolism down and make you very sluggish. Fish and grapes were high on the intellectual diet. As I eliminated the junk food.

I was able to recognize that I was a Carbohydrate addict. I needed to eat more often when eating so many carbs, because I was addicted to them. Once I cut my carbs down to 40 grams a day, I reduced the need to eat as much and as often.

My cholesterol levels went down, blood pressure went down, and I'm spending less time eating.

Down time! Remember this time management tip - take a minimum of one hour a day for yourself. I read one of the most interesting books I have ever read in about five minutes. The title is "Be Good to Yourself".

Whether it's taking a bath, going for a walk, or leisurely reading, make time every day. You will be amazed at how much more productive you will be when you return to work.

Lunch time! Do you stay at work - you don't want to miss a customer, or pay someone else to work through the lunch hour! It's like the parent that never gets a baby sitter. You will be more appreciative of your business and more productive if you take breaks and get completely away from your work.

The person who takes work with them on their vacation and calls the office everyday, never really had a vacation. Breaks and vacations are for the purpose of reviving you.

THE ULTIMATE TIME MANAGEMENT TIP
But first, a quick story.

One day an expert in time management was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration those students will never forget.

As he stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers, he said, "Okay, time for a quiz." Then he pulled out a one-gallon wide-mouthed Mason jar and set it on the table in front of him.

Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. What’s this got to do with an amazing time management tip? Well, when the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?"

Everyone in the class said, "Yes". Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks. Then he asked the group once more. "Is the jar full?"

By this time the class was on to him as he worked to demonstrate this time management tip. "Probably not," one of them answered.

"Good!" he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar, and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?" No! The class shouted. Once again he said, "Good."

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked at the class and asked, "What is the point of this story?"

One eager beaver raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard you can always fit some more things in it!"

"No," the speaker replied, "That's not the point. The truth this time management tip teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you'll never get them in at all."

Let’s dig deeper into this ultimate time management tip. What are the 'big rocks' in your life? Your children, your loved ones, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others, doing things that you love, time for yourself, your health, your significant other?

Remember to put these BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all. If you sweat the little stuff (the gravel, the sand) then you'll fill your life with little things you worry about that don't really matter, and you'll never have the real quality time you need to spend on the big, important stuff (the big rocks).

So, tonight, or in the morning, when you are reflecting on this ultimate time management tip, ask yourself this question:

What are the 'big rocks' in my life? Then, put those in your jar first.

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