Getting Control of Your Time Management

A lot of people think they want to be successful but they really don’t do anything about it. They want more money but don’t want to put in an effort to earn that extra money. They want to become more educated yet don’t want to read more educational books or to enroll in any courses or classes.

They moan about lack of time; about how hard life is how other people get all the breaks or have all the luck. They get envious about the success of someone they know, telling themselves that this person must have it easier, have more money or have more time. We can’t do much about the easier part but we can help you create more money here and below we can help you with getting control of your time management.

As Ramit Sethi states “Show me a person’s calendar and their expenses and I will show you their priorities”

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If you truly want to be successful, to take control of your earnings and your career, then take ownership of your life. Cut out the excuses, the whining and whinging and start doing something about it. We’ve previously discussed setting goals, now let’s move onto time,more specifically time management.

Everyone has the same amount of time per day; the difference is how they spend it.

How do you spend your time?

Take a moment and write down how a traditional day is spent by you? Are you happy with how your day is spent? Is this a productive use of your time given you want to be successful and to take control of your life?

If so great, if not let’s make some changes. Look at successful people that you admire. If we view a successful person (such as an Oprah, an Elon or a Bill Gates) how do they spend their time? One way to work towards success is to mirror the ways that a successful person has achieved their success. A good start is to mirror how they spend their time.

Now let’s look at creating your ideal day.

If we go back to your list of how you spend a typical day, take that list and break it down to essential tasks (essential to yours or family members well being and living) and non-essential tasks.

Essential tasks include sleep, taking any children to school, going to work or to school, etc

Non-essential tasks include watching television, hanging out or talking with friends, playing sport, etc

Now I’m not suggesting you stop speaking to friends because it’s a non-essential item or to cut all non-essential tasks out of your life. I believe in having balance in your life, its how much time you spend on these non-essential items which you need to review.

There is not a lot you can do with the essentials, we all need to sleep, eat, earn money, etc. Yes, there are ways to “hack some of this time (such as working on your side hustle during work commutes or lunch breaks) its how you spend your “non essential” time which is where your wins will occur.

Go through your essential list and look for any potential ways you can utilize some of this time. As mentioned above, can you work on your side business on your work commute or during your lunch break? Now look at your non-essential time. How much of this time do you waste on nothing? By this I mean sitting in front of the television not really watching it, just wasting your time away? What about the time wasted with people who you think are your friends but who are really negative people who love to waste your time and are all about themselves?

Start cutting away the crap, how much more time are you left with?

After you’ve completed this list, either print out a calendar or use a calendar app such as Google Calendar and start putting in your “updated” essential tasks and non-essential tasks. Now for the rest of the free time in your calendar, start planning something useful with this and doing something proactive with your life. Want to go back to school, want to build a side business, want to improve your health or fitness; this is what your new “free time” is to be used for. Be vigilant with your new calendar, guard this. Try it out for the next 30 days, start building this into your daily habits.

Like a great sportsman, know how much time is on the clock and utilize that time to your advantage.

Now that you’ve got this free time, how are you approaching this? Yes, you may have made a big step in planning out your day, what about when it comes to the allocated time have you got a plan to make the most of it?

One tip that has worked well for me is to write down 3 things I need to achieve per day on whatever goal I am working on. Let’s say I want to lose weight and get healthy, 3 of my wins for the day would be to exercise, to have a healthy diet for the day and to look for a heart rate monitor/calorie counter.

Or if you were looking to create an online business, 3 of my wins I need for the day could include, finding an idea to build an online business, test whether this idea could be profitable and contacting an expert in this field for more information.

Once you start knocking off those wins, it becomes addictive and before you know it you will be a goal achieving machine and you will really be getting in control of your time management.

If you really want to make that change you can, it usually starts with your priorities and time management.

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