How to manage your time as a professional

Today’s post will be about how to manage your time effectively as a professional. 

The question is whether you handle the easy tasks for the day and leave the big tasks for later and wonder why you seem not to achieve your assignments and objectives. It is not that you do not have enough time in your hands, but it is all about how you can manage the time you have.
I’ve heard so much talk about time management. There are tones of talks and books on time management.  What does it really mean to manage time?
 

The thing is time cannot be controlled. Time waits for no one. You cannot save time, lose time, or turn back the hands of time. Time keeps going no matter the circumstances and events in life.


Time can only be ridden like a roller coaster. What do I mean? You cannot change time, but you can approach it differently. You make use of time.

Every milliseconds counts, every second counts, every minute counts, every hour counts and every day counts. So, what do you do since time keeps counting?

Every bit of time is and opportunity for you to stamp it with an event and ride it until you get to where you are going or finish what you are doing. 

The best time to live is now. Do it now. 

The number one cause of failure is procrastination. They say procrastination is the thief of time. It will not only steal your time, it will steal your successes as well.
How can you manage your time as a professional? 

You have to
prioritise your daily activities. Prioritiseyour day beginning with your most important activities. Less important activities can be delegated or put off to another time or day. Your most important activities are those which are most valuable and bring returns.

How can you discover your most important activity for the day? 

You can use a simple rule which is called the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle. The 80/20 rule was discovered by an Italian economist called Vilfredo Pareto. 


The rule simply says that 80 percent of your work produces less than 20 percent of your results. And paying attention to 20 percent of your work produces 80 percent returns on your effort.

The thing is, you cannot do everything. The Pareto principle helps you to only focus on the important aspects of your daily work. 

As a professional who has targets to reach and clients to satisfy, you only need to focus on activities that produce the maximum results. At this time you will have to put multi tasking aside and concentrate on the most important task.
 Like I said earlier, time will not wait for you, but you can take a ride on the hands of time. Time is relative. 12noon in your time zone is the peak of your day but in another time zone it is bedtime. So you must operate on your own time zone. 

Time will keep moving no matter where you are. Don’t wait for it. Don’t run ahead of it. You don’t have to go back in time. But you can do something now. Like right now. Just do something important right now.

“Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.” POET: Carl Sandburg

What can you do right now?

1     Write down the six most important things you have to do today.

       Number them in order of their importance to you.
     
    Start with the first item. Don’t look at the others, just item number one and start working on it and stay with it until it is completed.
    If number one item is completed, take number two item the same way you worked with number one and complete it. Then take number three.
  
    Continue in this form until you have handled all your major tasks for the day on your list. 
      
    Don’t panic if you could not finish all the items on your list, you would have already worked on the most important items on your list anyway.

      DO THIS EVERY DAY.
If you follow this simple formula every day, your professional life will improve in leaps and you will achieve more in time.

Invest your time with the right people. Invest your time with people who add value to your life. Invest your time in only activities that produce valuable results.

Focus on improvement. Ask yourself if you are improving every day.

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