How To Find Time For… Everything!
5. Set Deadlines
Deadlines are sort of like a built-in goal for a project. If you know something is due next Monday, then you’re more likely to structure your work on it to make sure it gets done by Monday. (If not, you definitely need this article more than most.)
If you don’t have deadlines imposed by clients or a boss, then you’ll need to have self-imposed deadlines. Think about when you want to finish something or when you’d like to move on to the next project. Put that date in your calendar or mark it on your to-do list as the deadline for your current project. For added accountability, tell someone else about your deadline. I’ll sometimes post self-imposed deadlines on Twitter or Facebook so my friends there can hound me about it if I miss a deadline. Peer pressure can go a long way toward getting you to work harder.
6. Plan Ahead
Keep some kind of big-picture plan. This might be monthly, bi-monthly, or yearly, depending on your industry and the particular types of projects you take on. As I mentioned before, I keep a dry-erase calendar with my monthly projects and deadlines. I can also mark down appointments, important dates, and other information that might interfere with my deadlines or regular work schedule. Most of my deadlines are on a weekly or semi-weekly basis, so a monthly calendar works great for me. If you have longer deadline periods (or shorter ones), you’ll need to adjust the amount of time you need to look at at once to get an idea of how much work you’ve committed yourself to at any one time.
7. Prioritize
You have to prioritize the work you do. For the most part, work due immediately (or within the next few days) should be completed first. Then comes the work due within the next week or two, and then everything else.
Don’t forget to include family priorities, too. Your child’s first soccer game is important, so make sure that gets on the list of top priorities. Doctor’s appointments, school plays, parent-teacher meetings, date nights, and parties also need to be taken into account when you’re planning your work schedule. Decide what things you absolutely must attend whether your work is finished or not (there shouldn’t be very many things on this list), what things you want to attend if you get to a certain point in your work (and note what you need to have done in order to attend), and things that you may or may not attend if all of your work is finished.
Set up a system of marking the priority of different items on your schedule. This might be using different-colored pens to write in different items, or it might be putting a star next to the most important things, or even keeping separate lists for each priority. Again, just make sure whatever you choose to do makes sense in your lifestyle.
8. Delegate or Outsource
There’s nothing wrong with bringing in a little outside help once in awhile. This might mean delegating responsibility for a project to someone else in your office, or even to an assistant. It might mean outsourcing a certain aspect of a project (research, coding, etc.) to someone else so you can focus on the more important parts.
You don’t necessarily need to outsource or delegate parts of your work to be more effective. Why not consider hiring a housekeeper to come in and clean your house once a week? Or getting someone else to wash and detail your car instead of spending Saturday afternoon doing it yourself? These kinds of outsourced services can free up your time for the important things you want to do (like hanging out with your significant other or your kids, or playing an extra round of golf).
9. Optimize Your Processes
There are almost certainly things you do on a daily or weekly basis in the course of your work that you could streamline. It might be your billing. Or maybe your archiving. Or it could be something you do on almost every project you take on.
These are the things you should streamline and optimize. Look at the way you’re currently doing things and see if there are steps you could combine or cut all together. If you’re a web designer, this might mean creating your own custom set of template files for developing sites. Or using an automated invoicing program for billing. Or any number of other things that can be made more efficient if you’re only willing to take the time to identify them.
10. Learn to Say “No”
One of the biggest time-management pitfalls you can experience is taking on too much work. You have to learn to say “no” to some people. If you take on more work than you can handle, not only will you have problems meeting deadlines, but the quality of your work and your relationships (both personal and work-related) will suffer.
Before taking on any new work, look at your schedule. Do you really have time for another project? If not, simply explain to the client that you have too many projects going to devote the time necessary for their project. Most will thank you for it. And if you really can’t bring yourself to turn down work, give them a realistic timeline for when you can complete their project. Don’t say you can have it done the following week if you already have commitments taking up your time between now and then.
The same principle goes for personal obligations, too. Nothing says you have to serve on your homeowners’ association board. You don’t have to join the PTA or your local indoor soccer league. And just because you’ve done something every year for the past ten years doesn’t mean you have to do it every year for the next ten. Learn to say no to your friends, family, neighbors, and others in your life so you have time to say “yes” to the things that are really important to you.