Your Time is important and how you manage it matters

After all time is a finite resource. There are only so many hours in the day and how you spend those hours can be a challenge. So many demands on your time, at work and at home, with family and for yourself … sleep. It can be difficult to fit everything in without ending up exhausted, stressed out and running yourself ragged trying to do it all.

So often people know their time is important but they struggle to manage it wisely. In business and at work it’s even more important and key to everything you do.

• How much time you spend at work - too much?
• How much time you spending doing what you love - not enough?
• Time with family and friends. 
• Time to focus on your own health and wellbeing.

I use ‘Time Management’ in this context as a general term. It covers the ability to plan, manage and organise tasks and activities within the time available. 

You can’t really manage time itself but you can manage the choices you make with the time you have. How you choose to spend the 24 hours in your day. How much time you have available to do the things you want or need to do.

Good time skills ...

Good time (management) skills are essential. To manage your workload, handle multiple priorities and projects, organise yourself and your team. They enable you to:

• Work in a more productive and efficient way.
• Manage your workload and waste less time.
• Make better decisions. How and where you focus your time to achieve your goals and objectives and get the results you want.
• Increase your confidence when you realise you can manage and have better control of your workload.
• Adapt and be flexible when your priorities change or things get busy.
• Have good boundaries around your work and home life. More importantly be able to maintain and re-inforce boundaries when necessary.
• Create a better balance between work and home. Time for more of a life outside of work.
• Stop constantly juggling tasks, changing priorities and working long hours.

Poor time skills …

Poor time skills have the opposite effect leading to missed opportunities, poor self-esteem, low performance, frustration and stress.

And it doesn’t just affect you but the people around you too. They often feel the impact of the lack of planning and organisation and end up picking up the pieces or taking up the slack.

It's a reason people feel they’re being held back from progressing in their business or career.

• Missing out on opportunities because they’re too busy keeping their head above water or spinning plates.
• Not getting the bonus or promotion they feel they deserve or worse still, losing their job or their business.
• Constantly overwhelmed and stressed by their increasing workload and inability to manage multiple priorities and demands.

What about you?

Does this sound familiar?

A quick question as you start the year. On a scale of 1-10 how good do you feel your time skills are? 10 being as good as they can be, 1 being - total chaos.

• Between 8-10 - great! You're probably pretty happy with things and feel in control all or most of the time, with no real concerns.
• Less than 5 and you're probably struggling most or all of the time, feeling overwhelmed, stressed and frustrated.
• Between 5-8 - overwhelm, stress and frustration some of the time. There's still an opportunity for change.

What are the areas you feel could be improved? I’ll give you a pointer. Goals and Planning come up most often as two areas where people need to focus and improve. Closely followed by Prioritising.

For a little more in-depth insight, instead of a less than subjective 1-10, you can get more detail along with tips and ideas to improve each of five key areas when you complete the full Time Quiz.

Making a change in one area can have a significant impact on ALL areas of your life. Things slip into place more easily and you feel more in control of the choices you’re making. Even making a few small tweaks and adjustments can make a real and significant difference.

• Having clear goals makes it easier and improves your ability to plan and prioritise.
• Improving your planning allows you to organise, prioritise and waste less time.
• Being able to prioritise means you can manage your workload and find time for what's important.
• Implementing the right systems and processes, saves you time.

Don't leave it too long to make those changes. Focus on the key areas and see what you can do to improve not only how you use your time but also the quality of your life overall.

If you want to do something different in 2023 and make better choices with your time, get in touch and let’s have a chat.

In the meantime - read last week’s post on how to Kick-Start Your 2023. I'll share more next week, so make sure you're subscribed to get the info straight into your inbox.