Time Management Essential Skills

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Time Management Essential Skills

Time management training is essential because you don't have enough time to do everything for everyone; you only have time to do some of it.

Time management is about learning to do the most important things first, delegate the minor things, and ignore the trivial things.

Time management training, therefore, boils down to three essential skills.

• Prioritising - deciding which items on your list are the most important.
• Delegation - entrusting tasks to other people; the job still gets done, but someone else does it.
• Saying 'No' - avoiding jobs that do NOT lead to the achievement of your goals.

Prioritising

You need to prioritise your tasks and put them into order. There are two things to consider when prioritising:

1. The value of the task. Is the task high value or not? High-value tasks should be done before low-value tasks.
2. The urgency of the task. Is the task near its deadline or is there plenty of time? Urgent tasks need to be done before non-urgent tasks.

Prioritisation is one the most important skills you can learn.

There is a fantastic app available for your mobile device, that will help you to prioritise your tasks correctly: Prioritisation app.

Delegating

Delegating is when you entrust a task to another person. When you delegate a task, you need to ensure the following:

• They have a definite description of the task.
• They need the skills and information to do it.
• They need the resources necessary to do it.
• They need the time to do it.

If you want help to properly delegate tasks, then we have a terrific web-based tool which will help you to set goals and delegate tasks to others: Delegation tool.

Saying No

If you are doing only the priority tasks, then that means you need to say NO to those people who would take you off track.

Certain people want to fill your day with trivial, irrelevant, or distracting conversations. This represents a problem. The countermeasure to this problem is to:

• Say No to the trivial,
• Say No to the irrelevant,
• Say NO to the distractions.

Here is a formula of words you can use on these occasions.

"I know you have a lot you want to tell me. But right now, I need to focus more on this, because it is important I finish it today. So, would you please; leave me to focus on this?"

Summary

Time management training boils down to three essential skills:

• Prioritising. Link to our prioritisation app.
• Delegating. Link to our delegation tool.
• Saying No. Link to our one-day time management course.

Time Management Training

Time Management Training

Most people feel they need help with time management. How can you get more done in the same amount of time? How can you stop other people wasting your time? If you want to know how, then click here to find out more about our time management training course.

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Further Reading in Time Management

• The Avoidance of Preventable Errors
  No one is perfect, we are only human, and as such we make stupid mistakes. However, there are some steps we can take to eliminate them.
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• Time Management Strategies
  These seven strategies will help you to get more done in the time you have available. Follow our advice for setting goals, prioritising tasks, decision making and delegating and you will find your life will be more productive.
  Read Article >
• Good Planning
  If you want to be happy, you must believe that today and the future will be good. The best way to achieve this is by good planning. Take a look at these five steps to ensure that you can make your future brighter than it is today.
  Read Article >
• How can I manage my time better?
  How can I manage my time better? Many people ask the question, "How can I manage my time?" "How can I become better at time management?". It is important to be a good time manager, because we are all bound by a constraint that none of us can change: There are...
  Read Article >
• Common Time Management Mistakes
  We live in a world with constant distractions, in order to stay focused learn to avoid these common traps.
  Read Article >