Tips to Help Create More Time in Your Day

Time management seems to be an issue in almost everyone's lives as there never seems to be enough time in the day to complete all of the day to day tasks.

Whether you are a stay at home parent, a work at home parent or you work outside of the home, I am sure that you could use a few more hours in your day.

Get organized: I can't stress this enough. This is the first thing that absolutely needs to be done to improve your time management skills. Think about all of the time that is wasted looking for things; looking for papers, phone numbers, supplies.....your desk top.

Use the first 15 minutes of your morning to organize your work area.

Go over your "To Do" list and organize the things needed to accomplish them.

Identify your most productive time: You may be a morning person or an evening person. I do all of my most difficult tasks when I am fresh in the morning.

Use your child's nap time or one hour of "TV time" for your kids to do your most difficult tasks.

Make your "To Do" list the night before: Know what you will accomplish the next day. That way, you start out with a goal in mind first thing in the morning rather than wandering around aimlessly.

Divide your "To Do" list into several page; one list for things to do tomorrow, this week, and one for things to do this month. As you accomplish these goals, cross them off. I write my monthly goals on my calendar.

Find more time in the day: Need an extra hour in the day? Get up an hour early and have your first cup of coffee or tea sitting at the computer going through your e-mails, answering your e-mails and posting to forums. I call these my "day wasters".

Schedule it and stick with it:Write one thing that you will accomplish on each day of the week on your calendar.

Avoid the big "day wasters": Forums, TV, surfing the web, and talking on the telephone are all huge "day waters" if not used properly. These are all great things, when used in moderation, but can become very addicting and you can seriously lose hours and hours of your day with all of them.

Limit your "day wasters" to the morning hour of your day. This is a huge time management tip!

Household chores and house cleaning: Clean one thing every day.

Do double duty: Where and when possible, carry out two or more activities simultaneously.

Learn to "Just Say No!" to distractions.

Avoid interruptions: Say if you are trying to work at home, explain to family and friends that you have work to do and will not be available between the hours of 8-5 but would love to hear from them after that. You choose your hours.

By following a few of these simple time management suggestions, you should have another hour or two of time in your day to run your business or to just spend it enjoying your family.

Mugambi Lloyd Kevin mugalloyd2@gmail.com