Make Time to Find Time

by Rebecca Cruz on July 23, 2013

In my first post on time management, I quickly realized I didn’t have enough time to cover everything.  And while I never will, I did want to share a bit more of what I learned about managing my time. The following provides you with a few more tips to help you “find” more time in your day.

Looking Back: Sometimes, at day’s end you can feel like nothing was accomplished. In an article on Entrepreneur.com, the authors suggest keeping track of a week’s worth of work, complete with your “thoughts, conversations and activities.” Once you have this list, you can review it to help determine what you are spending time on that is and isn’t as productive.[1] This practice can also be helpful for those days when you feel like nothing was accomplished because your list might prove you wrong. Maybe you didn’t finish up your plans for your next story time, but you did have an important conversation with your coworker regarding the performers for the summer reading program.

Remembering the Rules: A few different articles mentioned the rule of 80/20 for time management. According to Psychology Today, this rule is defined as eighty percent of the important things we do come from just twenty percent of our work.[2] This guideline definitely makes you think differently about how much of your effort is underutilized. It also works well with the tip of looking back at your time. Regularly evaluating your use of time will help you to prioritize.

Building the right processes and relationships: A Forbes article described twelve tips to work toward for this year. A few of them are combined into this one guideline. As you go through the different responsibilities you have each day, work to develop processes that will help to keep you on track and make your day go more smoothly. The relationships you work on can also help with how you manage your time. Build the ones that will help you to achieve what you need and want to do. Focus on the people who will help you toward your goals.[3]

Most of the advice I read seemed to have something about how managing your time takes time. Reading the vast array of articles on this subject definitely takes a while. Integrating the tips into your daily routine can be even harder, but if you decide to make some changes and stick with it, I think you can find more satisfaction in your working life as you watch yourself accomplish even more.

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Tags: time management