Time Management For Dummies, UK Edition

Clare Evans

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470777657
• eBook ISBN: 9781119996293
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Time Management

If you're finding yourself tied down by piles of paperwork, endless unanswered emails and thousands of to-do lists, then this is the book for you! Become a more efficient, effective and productive you with Time Management For Dummies- your one-stop guide to taking control of your life.

Packed with hundreds of time-saving ideas, techniques and strategies, you'll be able to: get on top of your workload, communicate effectively, make the most of your business meetings, organise your desk and files, prioritise and delegate well, and kick the procrastination habit. With tips on getting more out of your time away from your desk, maintaining a productive home office environment and still finding time to see to your finances, health and social life, these time management tools will leave you feeling in control of your life – at work and at home.

Time Management For Dummies covers:

• What is Time Management?
• Getting Your Time in Order
• Organising The Work You Have To Do
• Working From Home
• The Bigger Picture

Part I

What Is Time Management?

In this part . . .

I take a look at what your poor time management is really costing you, and the benefits of managing your time more effectively. One of the biggest challenges people have is putting things off, so in this part you find out what you can do about tackling procrastination.

Chapter 1

Replacing Bad Time Habits with Good Ones

In This Chapter

Recognising the value of time management

Reviewing how you currently manage your time

Knowing your future goals

Looking at how you can make better use of time

Everyone has the same 24 hours in the day – you, me, the Queen, Sir Alan Sugar, and the person in your local shop. However, what you get out of those 24 hours depends entirely on how you spend them. Highly successful people use their time highly successfully. Now, you may not be aiming for ‘highly successful’ but, given that you’re reading this book, you probably want to be more efficient and productive with your time.

‘There simply isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done,’ I hear you cry. Contrary to popular belief, there is enough time. Most people’s problem is that they try to do too much in the time available, or they don’t organise and plan effectively, so they constantly waste time.

If your desk looks like a tip and you can never find anything, if you only ever get a piece of work done when a deadline is looming, and if you guzzle caffeine so that you can burn the midnight oil, then perhaps you need to look at how your current habits affect the way in which you manage your time – and then change some of those habits.

Understanding the Importance of Time Management

Because you have only 24 hours in each and every day, making the best use of these hours makes good sense. Once those hours have gone you can’t get them back, and you can’t make more of them if you lose or waste them. They’re a finite resource, which means that spending a little time brushing up your time management skills can transform your life in various ways.

Increasing productivity

It’s all too easy to get to the end of the day and wonder what you’ve actually achieved, even though you feel as though you haven’t stopped all day. Many a time I’ve known people who say ‘I’ve been really busy all day but what did I do?’ I’ve done it myself. You’re busy but not necessarily productive.

Managing your time means you’re more effective. You get more done in less time, you focus on the important things and so your overall productivity increases.

For example, by managing your time better, you may be able to carve out an extra half-hour a day. Spend that half-hour on your most important project every day for a week and you’ll be astonished at how you chip away at the work. Good time management now has a great long-term effect.

Reducing stress

If I were to wave a magic wand and give you an extra hour in every day, what would you do? Usually when I ask this question, the most common responses are – sleep and exercise, or just time to relax. These responses go to show what kind of activities tend to get pushed to one side when time is short or when people try to cram too much into what’s available and what’s physically possible.

Poor time management leads to overload, frustration, lack of motivation, and poor self-esteem. The longer your poor time management continues, the more stressed, tired, and ill you become.

You get caught in a vicious circle. You never get time to catch up or get on top of things. You just keep doing things the same way because you don’t know how to do them any diff...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : What Is Time Management?
• Part II : Getting Your Time in Order
• Part III : Organising the Work You Do
• Part IV : Working from Home
• Part V : Looking at the Bigger Picture
• Part VI : The Part of Tens
• : Further Reading