Taking back control of your time
Many years ago my father told us that during his first job in the clothing industry, the company owner invited some people to come into the factory and observe how operations were run.
Dad was told these people were carrying out a "time and motion" study. They sat and watched machinists arrange the different parts of the garment and the time it took to sew each piece together. The aim of all of this was to help the workers carry out the process more efficiently, thereby saving time and increasing productivity (for the company!).
Time management techniques have expanded since those times.
In today's world, we are expected to deal with more and more 'operations' within a given work day. Our space is constantly invaded by land line and cellphone calls, emails, instant text, voice or video messages, flashing billboards - the list seems to get longer every other day. And that's not counting personal interactions with family, friends and colleagues.
What quiet time is there left to think and create?
Most people get to the end of the day and sigh - "Where did the day go?"
Unless you're one of those rare people who by nature are super organized, the only way to reclaim your time and overcome the increasing competition for your precious waking hours is to take advantage of time management techniques.
Just type "time management techniques" into your favorite search engine and you'll have access to many options. (Google just returned me over 40.5 million hits!). I found the advice in Mark McGuiness 's free ebook really helpful but there are plenty of other sources as well.
Better time management will help in your work, business and personal life.
But there is a catch to reclaiming your time - you have to give in!!
What I mean is that you need to be ready to be guided by the timetable YOU set. That takes some discipline and adjustment for most people. But it's worth it.
Online timetables are easy to set up and use. Two useful tools are those already available in Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
In NimdX Articles, we'll be posting more tips and discussing techniques on Time management. Hope you'll read and comment on them
To your success,
Mike
NimdX Admin
