Working Moms Blog

Time management is really a misnomer. You may think that you manage your time but in reality this is rarely the case. More often, time manages you.

Deadlines are imposed by events (your plane leaves at a certain time) or other people (your boss absolutely needs that report by tomorrow).

So how do you set about managing your time when so little of it is actually under your control?

But there are some time management activities you can use. See which works for you.

Log where you spend your time. Note down every 15 minutes what you’re doing. It may take longer to do this but the exercise will highlight where you are spending most of your time. You can then decide whether to change your time emphasis.Apply the 80/20 principle. Typically 80% of our results come from 20% of our time and effort. Work out where you’re getting your best results, spend more time doing that and less time doing unproductive things.Leave things undone. This may sound like heresy! Lots of things that come across our path can be safely ignored or otherwise left undone. Those emails will arrive whether you check them or not. If it’s truly urgent, someone will likely call you rather than leave it to the hit-and-miss of email. Television news will continue to happen whether you watch it for 30 minutes a day or not. You’ll find skipping the news has the side effect of automatically cutting out lots of negativity in your life, killing two birds with one stone.Hire help! Whether it’s a cleaner at home, someone to look after your garden or whatever. Delegate the less important tasks. Consider hiring an online personal assistant to help with jobs that are “below you” but still need to be done.
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