Organizing & Time Management

Time management is vital.

It is vital to home, career, family, friends, pets, travel, events, and much more.

It affects everyone and everything around you.

Successfully managing your time means that you can complete task lists, use the hours of the day efficiently, and most of all, accomplish your goals.

Check out the following time management tips to get started.

What are your goals? What is your new year's resolution? Each year brings us an opportunity to start over, attempt again, begin fresh, try harder, and so on. We figure out what our goals for the coming days are, we tell people what we will resolve, the new year comes and then ...... we say "Ah, there's always next year."

• Next, you want to think about all of the smaller aims you need to accomplish in order to get to your end result. Think about the bigger picture and work backwards if necessary. Write each step on the piece of paper above your final aim.

• Lastly, put the steps leading to your goal in order and apply them to your calendar. Set a completion date for each small achievement and pencil them in to your schedule. This will ensure mindfulness of your resolution and constantly encourage attainment.

New year's resolutions are much like organizing goals: easily said but difficultly achieved. Setting smaller aims offers a less intimidating, more attainable path towards the end result. So whether you have a new year's resolution to lose weight or a goal to get organized, remember to take baby steps and to stick to the plan.

Part of good time management is knowing how to set a realistic goal. What is a realistic goal?

A goal is a task that you strive to complete, but a realistic goal is a specific task with a reasonable time line that you strive to complete.

Any way you slice it, your goal has to be realistic in order to achieve it. No matter how big or small you think you’re goal is, you have to be specific in how your going to get there. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself all the who, what, where questions until you know how you’re going to cover every angle of your goal.

For example, let's say your new year's resolution is to lose weight. If your goal is that general, chances are it won't happen.

Make your goal more specific. Ask yourself a lot of questions, so you can figure out every angle of how you're going to get there. Why do you want to lose weight? Do you exercise enough? Do you eat out too much? Do you eat too much in one sitting?

After answering a bunch of questions, your new year's resolution will transform from wanting to lose weight to going to the grocery store once a week so you can cook 4 nights a week, one of which is a new recipe. When you have a clear path to your end result, then you know you've made a realistic goal.


Set Realistic Due Dates

Another part of good time management is setting realistic time lines. The quickest way to NOT get your goals accomplished is to set unrealistic expectations. We have to set goals with realistic due dates. And setting realistic due dates is all about what you know you can accomplish. Who are you? What can you handle? Set due dates that you truly believe you can reach.

Here's an example:

This is one of those stories that starts out with my fiancée thinking I’m a little crazy but ends up with him being so thankful that I did what I did.

I started packing for our move one month prior to moving day. Now this might sound a little absurd for a small one-bedroom apartment but trust me it turned out to be quite the opposite…

What I did was block off one hour on each weekday leading up to moving day to pack boxes. The first week I started with decorations, holiday items, winter clothes (since it was a summer move), and so on.

We moved on a Tuesday. Since I really stuck to my packing schedule, I was pretty much done the week before. This left the weekend and the day before moving day open for much needed relaxation and some time to deal with the unexpected.

Now I know that my fiancée was ever so grateful for this free time because he used it to propose to me the night before we moved! We actually had time to be excited, call our close friends and family with the news (which took a lot longer than I ever imagined it would), and go to dinner to celebrate.

In the story I just told you, I knew I couldn’t pack at the last minute and cram everything into the weekend before moving day. That’s not how I operate. I’m not comfortable under that kind of pressure. I like things to be planned out. Knowing myself like that, the whole month of packing little by little was a realistic time line and the goal was achieved.

Also, as the above story demonstrates, you can always expect unexpected things to happen. Scheduling your tasks, doing so realistically and sticking to your time line is absolutely crucial to good time management and accomplishing your goals.


Stick To The Plan

How do we commit?

Well, how do you get your errands done? How do you make sure you go to the grocery store or pick up the dry cleaning? Errands are usually small, specific tasks with immediate results, so we are more inclined to get them done.

So...do you know what I'm going to say?!

BREAK DOWN YOUR GOALS into small, specific tasks with reasonable deadlines that you can complete. Block off some time, pencil the tasks into your calendar and do them.