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.

Below you'll find the general process for accomplishing a goal as well as examples of how to plan it out. Also, check out the time management links on the right. Enjoy!

The General Process

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."

Keeping a resolution or actually accomplishing the goal is one of the hardest parts of time management, especially if your aim is large and unattainable.

• The first thing you want to do is think about the bigger picture. What is the overall goal? What will the end result look like? Once this has been decided, write it down on the bottom of a piece of paper (like the example below).

• 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. Be sure to block off time for getting these small tasks done as well. 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 good time management and 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.

Reaching your aims is much easier if you know how to set goals with realistic timelines. Here's exactly how to do it!