Suggested by: Janet Schlarbaum
By Luke Blaise
One approach to improving your time management skills is to schedule everything you need to do in a day like an appointment. Schedule everything from eating breakfast, driving to work, to grocery shopping.
The power of scheduling everything, is that you actually see how long certain tasks can take. This rigid scheduling also helps keep you moving from task to task quicker.
When you sit down to actually make your schedule be sure to plan for emergencies. Don’t schedule all your tasks back to back. Additional tasks and emergencies show up no matter what. If it is your boss giving you an additional report to do or your child getting sick, you need to allow some slack in your schedule.
Another thing to do is to buffer your appointments. Buffering means scheduling them longer than you expect them to take. This is commonly done in professional offices because rarely does something end on schedule.
Once you make your schedule, make every effort to stay on close a schedule as possible. When you find yourself running out of time on a task, or a task finishing quicker than expected. Make a note of it.
At the end of everyday, review your schedule and notes you took during the day. Identify areas that could be scheduled better. Then make your schedule for tomorrow today. This is the best time to do it, so tomorrow when you wake up you are ready to go. This is one of the more involved time management tips out there, but it is one that can quickly get your schedule and life under control.