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MAKE MORE TIME TO HAVE A LIFE!

Learn how to plan your day
Have you ever wished you had more time in the day, in your week, or even in your life? Have you tried and tested many methods to make changes but they all come to zero? The problem is that most people spend their time being busy, rather being productive, meaning that they spend their day on ‘time wasters’!

Has your goal been to achieve more with less? Yet you haven’t found the time to write down your goals, let alone achieve them? Why is it that some people find it easy to set and achieve goals, whilst others find it a struggle or ‘all to hard’ to do at all?

Personal motivation may be the key to making changes. Are you really committed? Do you need to learn how to work differently, as well as understand the reasons why your habits are affecting your performance? Do you need further skills training and support to help you?
Successful behaviour change requires a combination of all of the above during a period of change, as change doesn’t happen overnight - but it will happen over a period of time.

If your goal is to be more productive, achieve more with your life, and to stop working long hours, then there is no better time to start than now!

Let’s look at how much time you have in a day. This is often confused with how much time you have available in a day.

The Reality Check

1. Do you feel pressured or overwhelmed by your workload?
2. Could you be delegating some of your work to staff?
3. Do you take work home to do after dinner or over the weekend?
4. Do you need additional resources to complete tasks?
5. Can some of your deadlines be rescheduled?
6. Do you need to learn how to say ‘no’?
7. Do you go to meetings that aren’t relevant to you?
8. Are you busy keeping busy - but not productive?
9. Could the flow of your paperwork be better streamlined?
10. Are you constantly creating documents from scratch?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then the answer may be simple and effective. It also may mean that it is time to recognise your current workplace habits and that it is time to change. How?

On a Monday morning or Friday afternoon, whichever suits you best, take 15 minutes out to start planning your life by planning your week.

Step 1: Create a Master “To Do List”
Separate activities into 3 separate lists

1. Daily To Do List - This is a list of tasks that have to be done daily.
   
   1. Allocate approximately how long each task will take to complete
2. Project To Do List - This is the list of projects that you are currently working on.
   
   1. Under each Project, write down all the tasks that have to be done in order to complete each Project. The number of tasks for each Project may vary.
   2. Allocate which week, these tasks are to be transferred to your Daily To Do List.
   3. Allocate approximately how long each task will take to complete.
3. Long Term To Do List - This is a list of tasks/activities you would like to do in the future and as yet, haven’t set a time.
   
   1. You want to be reminded so write these task/activities down. They can be rescheduled at a later date.

Step 2: Planning your Week

1. On a weekly basis, transfer tasks from the Project To Do List to the Daily To Do List. This is so that tasks can be allocated a time during a day for when they can be completed.
2. Now you will have a Daily To Do List that includes all of the tasks to you need to complete throughout the week..
3. For each day, prioritise the top 5 for each day.
4. This is now your real Daily To Do List

Step 3: Your Weekly Timetable

1. Open your diary (or calendar whichever you use) to show Monday to Friday (or Sunday if applicable).
2. Write in your diary on each day, the time you will start work and the time that you expect to finish.
3. Then write in your diary, all scheduled events (ie meetings, appointments, functions or any other commitments) that you have booked in for the week
4. Under each day, write down the number of hours that you already have committed to scheduled events.
5. Next, subtract the committed hours on each day to the hours from when you start to when you finish work.
6. This will then give you the number of hours that you have available to ‘work’.

Step 4: How it works

1. Go to your Daily To Do List (as described in Step 2).
2. Analyse the tasks you have allocated on a daily basis against the available time for each day. This will then tell you whether in real times, you will be able to complete the work on that day, or whether it needs to be rescheduled to another day when you do have the available time.

Remember, for each day, allow time for the ‘unexpected’ ie answering emails, phone calls, client liaison, colleagues, or paperwork that arrives on your desk!

Don’t despair if it all does not fall into place in one week, it may take some time for you to adjust to your To Do Lists, but persistence is worth the effort - after all, it will give you more time to do the work your supposed to do, and to have a life outside of work.

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