Ten Time Management Choices That Can Change Your Life , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Sandra Felton , Marsha Sims

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119 pages

English

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Description

Get more out of every day! From goal setting, project management, and to-do lists to daily scheduling, creating new habits, and curing chronic lateness, this book will change busy readers' lives. Everyone from free-wheelers to perfectionists will love these solutions for both home and work.

Sujets

Gestion et management

Time management

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	13 janvier 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441223050
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0173€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2009 by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Previously published under the title Organizing Your Day
Ebook original edition created 2011
Spire ebook edition created 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-58558-985-2
Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Village Blacksmith”
contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Introduction
The Ten Management Choices
1. Something Strange Has Happened to Time: Too Many Options
2. Complications of Time Management: Being Willing to Make the Necessary Changes
3. Change for the Better: Adjustments That Work
4. If Things Were Perfect: Set Goals for Your Life
5. Handling Activity Clutter: Four Dynamic Methods
6. Measure Your Time: Keep a Time Log
7. Modern Multitasking: Help and Hindrance
8. Perfectionism: Helpful or Harmful?
9. Procrastination: Overcoming a Nonproductive Tendency
10. Easy Project Management: Getting Started
11. Working with Your Projects: The Project Notebook
12. To-Do List: Keep on Top of Your Important Activities
13. Delegate: Build a Team
14. Interruptions: Regain Control of Your Time
15. Time Wasters: Take Charge
16. Scheduling Routines: An Indispensable Tool
17. Daily Scheduling: Move Smoothly through the Day
18. Scheduling Tools: Calendars, PDAs, Day Planners
19. Chronic Lateness: Understanding and Curing the Problem
20. Creating Powerful Habits: Surefire Methods That Work
21. Organize Your Space at Home: De-stress Your Life and Free Yourself
22. Organize Your Business or Home Office: Ensure Maximum Productivity
23. Organize Your Papers: The Joy of Clear Surfaces and Neat Files
24. Make the Most of Life: Manage Your Opportunities
Activities for Ten Time Management Choices
Resources
About the Authors
Back Ads
Back Cover
introduction
We have discovered something we want to share with you: time management can be fun. Oh, maybe not birthday party fun or Disney World fun or winning-the-game fun. But nothing beats the satisfaction of coming to the end of the day and feeling it was successful. That’s real fun!
After we have a good time at Disney World, we come away saying, “Disney did a good job.” But when we come to the end of a satisfying day in which we accomplished significant things, we look back and say, “ I did a good job.” In the long run, that feeling adds a lot more to life than a good vacation.
Sometimes we are admonished to remember that we are human “beings,” not human “doings.” But people are designed to be doers, to accomplish significant things during our time on earth. What we actually hate is to choke our lives up with low-priority activities that mean nothing at the end of the day. We recoil from wasting our lives on a myriad of things that have little or no significance in the long run.
One of the goals of this book is to help you accomplish easily and quickly those necessary but uninspiring activities that comprise much of our daily lives so you can turn your attention to the significant things you want to do. As you read and use the ideas in this book, you will begin to notice that piles of paper are no longer on your desk at work, and piles of clothes are slowly disappearing at home. The bills are getting paid. You are able to get home in the evening on time because you have eliminated time wasters at work. Somehow, when you manage your time, things that used to be neglected just get done.
Another goal is to help you turn your heart and mind to the excitement of discovering the things that are really important in your life and getting those done. For most people that will mean two things: deepening personal relationships with family and friends and accomplishing meaningful projects.
Some of us have a hard time creating and using systems. Either we don’t have the skills to design a system or we design one that is so complicated we can’t maintain it. In some cases, once we find a really good system, we have trouble being consistent. This is the reason we have boiled the secrets of successful time management down to the big ten we spotlight at the end of this introduction. Focus on these. Weave several into your life over a period of time and one day you will wake up and find your life has changed.
When you discover the power of managing what goes on in your daily life so that it works better than you ever thought possible, you may want to let out a little shout of joy. As your life becomes vigorous with significant accomplishments, you will feel a surge of enthusiasm.
But first, there are problems to be solved. “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!” was how Shakespeare’s Hamlet expressed his personal problem.
What has that to do with us? Hamlet has little to do with us, unless you are reading this book because you also have a problem with time that is out of joint and needs to be set right. Like him, you are the only one who can do what it takes to fix it.
This leads us to the twofold question of this book: Why are you (like many of us) having problems with time management and what can you do to change things for the better? In other words, how can you move from the dark clouds Hamlet was sitting under into the whoohoo! sunlight you are looking for?
When you finish this book, you will know these two things: how your time got out of joint and how to set it right. Once you have acted on what you know, we want to hear the shouting.

Let us hear from you. After you have read this book and made changes that benefit your life and the lives of those who matter to you, you want someone to know what you have done and to care. We care and would love to hear your good reports.
Contact Sandra at www.messies.com and/or Marsha at www.sortitout.net .

1 something strange has happened to time
too many options
Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have. Spend it wisely.
Anonymous
If you think people in today’s world have a unique problem with time, you are absolutely correct. While we were not paying attention, something happened. That something is progress. Modern advancement is like a wonderful train full of good things for our lives. It transports prosperity and convenience beyond the dreams of the past, and even beyond the reach of many in today’s world, but it brings some baggage as well.
In his book Margin , Richard A. Swenson uses an enlightening illustration. Let us suppose that a five-hundred-car train were bound for a needy third world village, loaded with medicine, automobiles, libraries, food, recreational equipment, and a good supply of gold.
Scattered randomly among the five hundred cars, however, were fifty cars containing deadly viruses, pollutants, poisonous gases, illicit drugs, and nuclear weapons poised to explode if they were jostled.
That’s the way it is with modern progress. Some very good things have come our way, but unexpected problems have gotten into the mix—among them our problem with time.
Time got very much out of joint when technology entered modern life. The average American spends thirty-one and a half hours a week watching television (2006, Nielson). Yikes! That’s almost a second job. We spend more time commuting, since the automobile has made it possible to travel farther to work. The cell phone connects us to more and more people wherever we are, so we can talk many more hours. When modern household conveniences made cooking, cleaning, and laundry easier, women raised their standard of housekeeping and added other time-consuming pursuits as well. Life got less physical but more hectic.
In short, modern conveniences give us more options, more opportunities, and increased stimulation to participate in more activities. That’s good. But many activities are time wasters. That’s bad. It is such a good train, many of us have not realized that it has muddled up our lives in ways our grandpa did not have to worry about. People are feeling the pressure. As a result, an important concept is growing more and more important in modern life—time management, which is really activity management, which actually boils down to self-management.
Our job in this book is to identify and derail the time management difficulties that got mixed in with the good life we have developed for ourselves. This book spotlights realistically the issues you and many people just like you face every day. As you read about people in real situations facing actual problems, you will begin to recognize the strategies you can apply to bring you real success both at home and on the job. As you read this book, spot your personal problems with time management so you can set about getting rid of them.
The Problems Look Something like This
You come into work early and leave late and tired. You want a change. In short, you are overwhelmed.
Or you work all day at home, and when your husband comes in, looks around, and asks what you’ve been doing all day, you have trouble knowing what to say, because you aren’t really sure.
What is the problem, or better yet, what is the solution?
Michael
Michael’s company downsized and let his co-worker go. Now Michael’s doing two jobs in middle management and calling it one. Stress is building. He has just found out he has high blood pressure. He needs help and he needs it quickly.
No