How To Get Serious About Time Management in One Hour

Do you know what it means to get serious about managing your time? I ask this because one of the most challenging stumbling blocks I see people having with time management is simply that they don’t decide up front that they are going to handle the creation of a personal time management system as a serious project. They try to make it an “add-on” or something they work on “when they get a chance.”

Unfortunately, building a skill doesn’t work that way. While it’s true that there are a number of easy things you can do to get an immediate edge over your busy workload, these things still have to be applied consistently and with focus. They can’t merely be something that’s “nice to do” – instead, they have to be something you will do.

Perhaps one of the things that makes it difficult for most people to really get a hold on becoming more productive with time management is that they view it as a quick fix solution – “If I buy this fancy day planner/PDA/whatever, it will fix all my problems and I’ll finally get ahead.” But in reality, it doesn’t work that way.

Instead, what time management is isn’t really the management of time at all – it’s the managing of your habits and behaviors. It’s mastering small and specific techniques that, when applied consistently, alter the way you look at your work and approach the tasks, projects and categories that make up the to-do lists you’ve been juggling. so you’re really not managing time – you’re managing your consistent behaviors. You’re managing you.

So it begs the question …. what kind of manager are you? Do you check in every once in a while, only paying attention when you have to put out a fire or handle a crisis? Or do you have a plan, one you put into place consciously and one that you work relentlessly because succeeding really matters to you? Be honest with yourself. This is no time to sugar coat things.

If you are like most people, you probably don’t have a time management plan in place. It’s likely you’re hoping things will come together on their own, and it’s likely you’ve been hoping that for a long time. In that case, you need to start getting serious about examining and adjusting your consistent behaviors so that you’ll have the all time you need to do all of the things you want.

Quick, Do This Now
So let’s take the first step now. Grab your calendar and make a lunch date (or dinner, or whatever makes sense for you) with yourself once a week and honor that appointment each and every week. This will be your personal review session where you ask yourself where you stand and what you need to do – and then you start working on it.

Just think of it – if you had a weekly meeting with your boss to discuss your progress on one particular project, don’t you think you’d stay focused and get results a lot faster then if you just worked on it “when you had the chance?” You know you would. So do yourself a favor and start scheduling this time now.

Oh, and if you’re thinking “I don’t have the time to have a weekly meeting,” stop feeding yourself that line of garbage. This weekly meeting is going to help you develop habits that will free up many more hours of your time every week, increase your productivity and erase an enormous amount of stress from your life.

That’s a pretty bold claim, but give it a shot and see how that weekly meeting proves itself to you over and over. The time you spend in this meeting will pay for itself. An effective way to frame this so that it becomes a no-brainer is to ask yourself “Would I trade a dime for a dollar?”

In other words, would you trade an hour of time to potentially free up ten more hours of productivity? If you “get it” – if you see the value in this, then you’re all set. So pull out that calendar, and schedule in your dime. Do it now, so you can start getting those dollars in return, as soon as possible.