LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE

“Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time Management

Time management is life management. A lot of our procrastinating originates from “lack of time”. We blame everything on time. The responsibilities of our roles as parents, siblings, spouse …ect often times become overwhelming. We struggle daily with meeting the needs of everyone on our lists and most often we find ourselves caught up in monotony and living an unfullfilled life. We lack the time to set personal goals and accomplish them. We become unfocused and chaotic. 

Life does not have to be a struggle. With proper time management we can create more hours in our day to do the things we love and accomplish our goals. It’s time to take back your power, own your time, and know that you are in control.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.  ~Life’s Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

 The first step toward time management is getting clear and organised. You have to get clear about everything. Set aside a few undisturbed hours for your self to get through this exercise. The only tools needed are a paper and a pen. Writing things down helps you organize, prioritize, and manage everything you want to do, this will bring clarity and purpose to life.

When we speak about time management, we simply mean organizing and utilizing our time in order to make the most of it. The way we spend our time directly relates to the quality of the life we experience. The more time we spend doing the things we love, the greater our overall wellbeing. Our purpose in life should be about becoming efficient at everything we do so we can have more time in our lives to fulfill our responsibilities as parents, spouses, employees or employers, friend, sibling whatever our roles are, and still have enough time for play and to truly enjoy the true beauty of life.

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and get to work. — H.L. Hunt

Time management is a set of attitudes, practices, and systems that help us to use our time to accomplish what we want. We are all unique, so we need for ourselves to develop our own unique system. By becoming more aware of what works for us and adopting principles that are proven to assist in becoming more efficient, we can create for ourselves a unique routine that works.

When we plan our time, we take control of our day. We accept responsibility for creating our own life experience. Planning our time would involve looking at all the areas of our life, acknowledging what needs to get done, delegating more, and incorporating more of the things we love. Developing a routine that works needs regular maintenance. Each day our commitment changes just as fast as we ourselves evolve. More efficient ways are discovered and adopted; less efficient methods are dropped or manipulated for improvement. Our goal would be to weekly review our routines and time spent, reflecting, researching and adopting new methods and routines for better time management.
Our routines and time management would evolve at a similar pace as our emotions and wellbeing. This fosters greater harmony and balance in our lives. Each aspect of our life is acknowledged and we are able to grow in every dimension.

We have created a system to assist in developing your own time schedule that would best suit you and your lifestyle. This process also allows us to create more balance in our lives.

Follow these simple steps for Living your best life – Time Management:

1. Increase your awareness of how you spend your time by Completing a time-use chart
2. Draw up an outline of your activities from the time-chart completed

3. Use the Mental Exercises to create your best life – A Balanced Life

4. Create your own time management schedule using the goals generated from your previous mental exercises and incorporate into your daily routines more activities that bring you joy and fulfillment.

5. To generate more time delegate more and become efficient at your tasks.

                                                                 Time Use Chart

Print out a copy of this chart. For one full week record everything you do in the slots provided. You can split some of the slots into 15 minute periods if necessary.

                                                      List of Activities
There are 168 hours in each week, list your activities in the chart provided below based on your time-use chart.
Your goal would be to have more time left over in the day after all our basic responsibilities and chores have been accomplished for family, friends, uninterrupted personal time, sports, or whatever brings us fulfillment and joy.
If you notice that you are not spending enough time on more productive things, try cutting down the amount of time you spend on things like watching TV or talking on the phone; replacing it with more productive and intellectual things. Efficient time management creates; more time for accomplishing our goals, establishes balance in our life and creates opportunities for enjoying the things we love.

Time Management Schedule
Print this chart, and fill in your activities (family, work, mealtime) Attempt to use this schedule for a week, and then readjust it as needed. Try to follow your schedule to improve your time use. As much as you are developing an efficient routine it is important to maintain flexibility and spontaneity. We do not want to create a strict way of living. It is more about being efficient and living a more fulfilled life.
Fulfillment increases when our responsibilities are accomplished, when goals are achieved, when all areas of our life are in balance and when we truly have enough time to do the things we love. When things pop up unexpectedly we need to acknowledge its importance, prioritize it by adding it into our daily schedule and executing it based on its level of importance in relation to our other commitments. We become open and prepared for the unexpected and we support time for play, spontaneity and change.

Personal Goals

Family Goals

 Relational Goals

 Personal Development

Bank Plan For Your Best Life Goals

Personal Goals

 Family Goals

 Relational Goals

 Career Goals

 Social Goals