Using your time effectively requires you to manage yourself, not time itself. One of the steps is to continually evaluate what’s working well for you and do more of it.
As I reviewed the past week to see what had been better for me, I realised I’d been able to make more effective use of my time by starting a project much earlier than usual. Previously I would have bought into the thoughts of ‘You’ve got plenty of time’, or ‘You don’t need to start that now’ and so left getting started until later. On this occasion, I didn’t waste time listening to my thoughts but got started when my energy level was good and I felt inspired to take action.
A lot of time can be wasted and pressure generated by procrastinating or leaving things till the last minute. I found that by starting this task much earlier than I needed to, I actually saved time. When I got stuck or lacked clarity and understanding, I had time to allow the clarity or next step to come to me quite naturally. Instead of wasting a lot of time trying to think it through, I had confidence that the answer would come and I’d start moving forward again. This happened when I least expected it, such as while driving, walking, sleeping, playing squash, cooking a meal, having a conversation and listening to music.
Starting things early enables you to work in shorter bursts as you have a reserve of time to break down a bigger piece of work into smaller pieces. You work more effectively and productively in shorter chunks of time and can benefit in many ways from the breaks between each burst of working. If you wait until the last possible minute before starting something, you miss out on the benefits of doing smaller stints and enjoying breaks away from whatever you’re working on.
Being successful and effective requires you to start things early enough. So what stops many people doing this? Perhaps it’s procrastination, lack of forward planning, thinking they have too much to do or simply a lack of awareness if they haven’t experimented with this idea before and experienced the benefits of it. A lot of people think they enjoy the adrenaline rush and the pressure of leaving things till the last minute. They think they perform better under this pressure. Yet often, they suffer more stress and make more mistakes. The task may take even longer to complete because they have to redo it. A pressing deadline will cause you to ‘make yourself’ do something which doesn’t usually inspire you and often means you’re not able to work at your best. If you want to use your time effectively, to be inspired and to perform at your best, then I invite you to experiment with starting some things earlier and evaluate the results for yourself.
You may choose to pick one particular project or task to experiment with at first. This may entail writing a report, getting your finances and investments in order or devising a business or a career development plan.
When you’re ready to experiment with this, make sure that if you do start something early, you don’t give it too much time and allow it to expand into the time available. This isn’t effective working. If you start work on something early, consider working only in 15-20 minute slots at a time, create artificial deadlines for yourself and thus benefit from healthy commitment.
What I want for you is to be effective with your use of time.
Wendy Hearn works with business owners, professionals and executives to discover and unlock their own inspiration, to effortlessly take the actions required to have the success they desire. To receive Wendy’s free newsletter, send an email to: newsletter@wendyhearn.par32.com http://www.Business-Personal-Coaching.com Copyright 2003, Wendy Hearn. All rights reserved.
