TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS

TIME MANAGEMENT (3)

By Ayo Emakhiomhe

TIME MANAGEMENT TOOLS

The tools stated here are not all conclusive, it is actually using what works best for you. They are those things you need to apply to achieve effective and efficient time management and become the time lord!

It starts with zero based thinking-ZBB; ZBB states ‘knowing what I know now and if I had to do it all over again, would I get into it again?’

Next thing you need to do before using any of the tools is effective planning and being deliberate. It also involves the willingness to pay the price – sacrifice.

Having done all the above, you can now employ the following primary and secondary time management tools;

The primary tools are the main tools you need to manage and plan your time effectively; the primary tools are those that you use to support the primary tools

                PRIMARY TOOLS

v  Goal maps: This involves 7 questions;

1.   What do you what to achieve?

2.   Order: which goals take priority?

3.   Draw: communicate your goal to your subconscious

4.   Why; identify your emotional drivers

5.   When; define your timeline

6.   How; what are the actions you will need to take?

7.   Who; choose the people or organisations that can support you.

v  Pros and cons: This is used mainly for deciding between 2 options. This is especially when the 2 options benefit your goal equally.

For example choosing between getting a promotion and learning French for your trip to France for holidays

v  Time style: Effective time management is a matter of style- working with your strong personalities and delegating the rest.

It is based on the principle that there is no right way to manage your time except your way.

‘T’ are good decision makers and can whip up a task list in no time.

2. ‘I’ are great enthusiasts and can get any show on the road

3. ‘M’ has tireless patience and are excellent team players

‘E’ are meticulous and will always finish the job on time and within budget.

Understand your own time style so you can conduct yourself accordingly; enlist help in areas of personal weaknesses

Know your time style and work with it today.

Priority quadrant

It involves prioritizing your activities and deciding:

1.   Which activity directly affects your goal/objective

2.   Which activity indirectly affects your goal/objective

3.   Which activity does not in any way affect your goal/objective

You focus on, spend more time and energy on activities in 1 and 2 above and completely eliminate activities in 3 above.

SECONDARY TOOLS

v  Use organizers (digital and manual)

v  Set daily priority lists/”TO DO lists”

v  Delegation/’other peoples time’

v  Saying ‘NO’, learn to use the power of the word ‘NO’. say no to time wasters, say no to quadrant 4 activities, say no to those activities/requests that do not contribute to your goals.

v  Use your diary

v  Use your computers, ‘Tablets’, IPODS

v  Use your mobile phones, IPHONES

v  Use the web

BE THE TIME LORD!

Are you ready to be the time lord? Have I been able to help you double your effectiveness?

Remember, the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step and failure is not denial, just an opportunity to learn and be better.

Practice! Practice! Practice! And you will be the time lord.

Shalom.

Paper based on inspirations from the works of Simon Phillips and Brian Tracy.

TIME MANAGEMENT (2)

TIME MANAGEMENT (2)

By Ayo Emakhiomhe

WHY TIME MANAGEMENT?

v  It shows how well you like yourself: if you like yourself well, you will use your time very well.

v  It is your most precious resource

v  It is irreplaceable

v  Successful people trade their time for money – they create value

v  Everything we do in life revolves around time

v  It determines the value you place on anything

WHAT IS TIME MANAGEMENT?

v  It is personal/life management

v  It allows you to control how events unfold in your life – controllable and uncontrollable variables. Uncontrollable variables are those things in our life that we have no control over like where we are born, who we are born to, when the sun rises and when it goes down. The controllable variables are those things in life we can influence, like reading this article, when we sleep, when we eat, going to work, etc. we should concentrate on molding the controllable variables in our lives to fit our life plan and focus on them and allow the uncontrollable variables take their course without worrying about them.

v  It is a skill and can be learned

v  It determines your life income and reward

v  It determines your return on energy(ROE): in investment parlance it is regarded as return on equity invested, in time management, it is a return that should create a clear balance in:

1.   Mental energy

2.   Physical energy

3.   Emotional energy

4.   Spiritual energy

We will continue with time management tools by next post.

TIME MANAGEMENT (1)

TIME MANAGEMENT

By Ayo Emakhiomhe

INTRODUCTION

·         One of the greatest skills you can possess today is time management.

·         We will take a look at time management to establish it as a core skill. If it is a skill, you can learn and master it

·         If you get the basics of time management right, success in every other area of your life is guaranteed to be achieved more smoothly.

·         Time management is all about you: yourself definition; the ‘why’ and the ‘how’, managing yourself better and achieving in other people’s time.

·         Time management is actually life management-time management goes beyond planning each day; it starts with planning your life, from the end to the present day, from the future to now, from the tombstone to the cradle. It is when you get it right with the main big issues that the small day to day issues will fall into place and have meaning in your life.

WHO ARE YOU?

The best way to fulfill your potential is just to be yourself. You will not achieve great results by imitating someone else.

To know who you are, write an Epitaph today.  

What were you able to write? Do you think that this is what would be written on your Epitaph if you were to die now?

Secondly, write a list of the five most important people in your life and what you hope to have left in their hearts; focus on the way you have behaved rather than on the actual things you have done.

It is said that you can tell how much importance an individual places on someone by the amount of time they spend with them. If your list is not representative of where you are spending your time, then you need to change it.

Thirdly, write a list of the five most important things in your life. Also, it is said that you can tell how much importance an individual places on a thing by the amount of time they spend with it. If the list you just created is not representative of where you are spending your time, then you need to change it.

Commit to making items/people on your list that you are currently neglecting a focus for the beneficial results you achieve from implementing the other activities in this course.

DISCOVER YOUR PERSON

How often do we take time out to reflect on our lives: what are we contributing, how do we benefit those around us, who we have become.

To discover who you really are, for the next 1 or 2 weeks, move around more consciously and note the following (possibly take some notes)

·         Listen to how people talk to you; people talk to you with intonations and inflections about how they feel about you

·         Listen to how you talk to others; a passage from the bible states that ‘from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh’. Your words say a lot about who you are, it tells us where you are going to and where you are coming from.

·         Reflect on the number of times you get annoyed or frustrated. When you know where you are going to your patience will be natural, when you are full of love, you anger will be rare, when you are wise, your frustration will be a needle in a haystack.

·         Check how many times you smile; learn to appreciate everything about life genuinely, you live life only once.

·         Monitor how many times you say ‘thank you’ genuinely; learn to be truly grateful for everything, no one owes you nothing, you owe yourself and your world everything. Celebrate small victories.

·         Check how often you plan, implement and review your actions. He who fails to plan, plans to fail.

·         Reflect on how many new friends you have made; life is about relationships, seek them, treasure them, everyday. Make it a point to make at least 1 new friend a month for life, move out of that comfort zone, RELATE!

To understand yourself fully, you should walk the same distance in your own shoes. What I am saying is based on the age old principle that suggests that in order to understand another person; you should walk a mile in their shoes.

YOU ARE UNIQUE

Note that you as a person are a unique combination. Your uniqueness is comprised of:

v  Your physical state. For example, your physical fingerprints are not the same with anyone on the face of this planet

v  Your spiritual state; man is a spiritual being living in a box called our body. Anything that happens in the physical must first happen in the spiritual. No matter what you believe in, you have a spiritual nature and it is unique to you alone. God relates to everyone individually no matter the number of beings on the face of this earth.

v  Your circumstances; you have control over your circumstances to a great extent. Your circumstances define you and you define your circumstances.

v  Your environment; your environment is what you see it as and what you make of it and nothing more. If you see your environment as harsh, it will become so.

v  The times in which you live; today is now and there will never be another today, the experience you are having now is yours alone and will not be for another person tomorrow, it can only be similar.

This combination of time and place is sufficient for us to understand that right now we should be having the time of our lives.

It is time to discover our USP-our strength, our Universal selling point.

Think through the things that make you unique, those things that make up your strengths, those things you do exceptionally well. Write them down and list them in order of priority. The number 1 item is your strongest and it is the one item that people will immediately use to recognize you.

Having discovered that, now go out daily and find every opportunity to demonstrate this unique quality. As you hit the road daily, note the following:

v  We identify too closely with what we do instead of who we are.

v  You are a person, not a job title.

v  Your occupation is what occupies your time not what you invest your time on.

v  You are not defined by what you do but by who you are.

v  You are everything, and, everything is you.

v  Maximize the value that you get from every moment that you live

v  Activity is the key and is only the reason why successful people benefit from momentum in their lives and in their businesses

v  The risk of risk-less living is the greatest risk of all. – Stephen Covey

v  FEAR- this is False Evidences Appearing Real; it has no power in your life, stop giving your time to it.

v  Never point a finger of blame at someone else, throw solutions at others instead. Successful people do not dwell on issues that are not contributing to their goals.  Before you pass the buck, lay the blame or find the fault, look at the 3 fingers pointing back at you.

v  Think positive always

 more by next post.

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