Matthew Laker

Personal time Management will help you enter, engage, and experience what you were created for.

As I journey with people, one of top tensions or challenges in people’s lives is related to how we spend our time. Many feel stressed out as they hack away at the “to do list” and responsibilities in life.

In my personal journey, and as I have walked with people, working harder is not going to help. Working smarter will help you move.

Try one of these suggestions and you just may start to see improvement. You could also work through each one step by step to steward the time you have.

1. What is important to you?

Take some time and answer this question.

2. Prioritize your work.

Let’s start right now. Break your day down into three phases. Copy the table below into a document or write it down somewhere.

What are the have-to’s in each of those slots? Fill it in.

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Sat.	Sun.
Morning
Afternoon
Night

You may need to create a work table and a home life table. When at work, what are the priorities on Monday morning? What is a reasonable expectation of the tasks you can complete?

Other questions to ask:

· Over the next 6 weeks what are the 6 things only I can do that have to get done. Post it somewhere you will see it.

· Today what are the 5 things I will do (perhaps if they are big task it can be less)

3. To do list for the day.

Organize that list into a first priority, and second and so on. What can wait and are ongoing projects? As you approach the day this will help you know what needs to be done. Put your to-do list into your calendar. Actually schedule each hour.

Example: At 2:00, I will work on such and such a task.

4. Focus on one project and finish it.

You will increase your effectiveness if you can focus longer on one project:

“multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.” (Joshua Rubinstein, PhD, Jeffrey Evans, PhD, and David Meyer, PhD, http://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask.aspx)

So finish one project.

Personal time Management will help you enter, engage, and experience what you were created for.