Improve Your Time Management Skills
Time management is one of those things that seems harder and harder to do these days. The problem of too many tasks and not enough time to do them seems to plague us all. But you can manage your time so that everything gets done and you aren’t stressed out—all it takes is a few basic management skills!
The Importance of To-Do Lists
To-do lists are essential to good time-management skills. These lists provide a guideline for what items are to be completed within a given amount of time. You may want to create a list weekly or daily. Either way, to-do lists help you remember what you need to do.
Completing a list each day can help you see how much you have gotten done. Place a mark next to high-priority items so you know at a glance what you should devote your time to first.
Setting Goals the Right Way
So many times we set goals but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. We still don’t accomplish what we set out to accomplish. This could be because of how we set goals. We don’t create a plan of action. The following are steps to improving our chances of following through and reaching goals:
- Choose just one goal at a time.
- Make sure your goal is realistic.
- Write down your goal.
- Break down the goal into smaller goals.
- Remind yourself of your goal. Use e-mail reminder systems, send yourself a postcard or use an online calendar or PDA to give yourself reminders of what your goal is and why it is important to you.
- Reward yourself for following your plan of action.
Goals have little chance of being successful until we create a plan on how to reach the goal. Remember, however, that goals may change as your situation changes. Remain flexible so you can adjust your goals if necessary.
Manage Distractions and Disruptions
Distractions are a part of life. Generally, when someone is interrupted in the middle of a task, he or she will temporarily shift his or her attention to the new item, complete it, and then move back to the original task. Still, it can be difficult to get back on track. The following are tips to helping minimize distractions:
- Turn off your phone when you are at home. Let the answering machine pick up calls. If you’re driving or running errands, keep your cell phone on vibrate or silent and keep it in your glove compartment so you are not tempted to answer it every time it rings.
- Set aside a specific time to answer phone calls rather than stopping what you are doing to talk on the phone.
- Turn off the television. If you need background noise, consider music instead, but make sure the music is upbeat and will keep you moving, rather than put you to sleep.
- If you must get something accomplished, consider hiring a baby-sitter to keep your children occupied while you complete your chores.
- Turn off your computer. It is tempting to check e-mail or get caught up in social networking sites. If the computer is off, you will not be as tempted to sit down “just for a few minutes.”
- Create routines. Having daily routines can help you avoid giving in to distractions. You will know what you are supposed to do and when you are supposed to do it. Once you get in the habit, you can avoid distractions.
If you find that, no matter what you do, you are still easily distracted, take a short break and take a walk outside for ten minutes. The fresh air and exercise will help you focus better when you return to your tasks.
Prioritize Tasks
In order to prioritize tasks, you have to clearly understand your “priority categories.” For example, how do you categorize something you have to do today to make it stand out from something that must be done by next week? The first step is to come up with categories to help you decide what tasks should be done first. Your categories might look something like this:
- Absolutely Urgent: These must be done right away or by a deadline and are important to your job, your family, or to you personally.
- Urgent: These are important to you, your family, or your job, but don’t have a deadline.
- Chores: These are things you don’t necessarily want to do but have to do anyway.
- Maybe: These are things you would like to do, but they aren’t especially important and it doesn’t matter if you do them today, tomorrow, or next week.
- Dreams, Wishes, and Ideas: These are things you might like to do but have no immediate importance in your life.
Once you can categorize all of the tasks you need to complete, it is easier to begin to accomplish tasks. You are no longer floundering, wondering what to do: you have a specific order of what to do and when to do it.
Using categories such as these may be confusing at first, but, as you continue to work with them, you will start automatically assigning categories as soon as you receive a task. Once you do that, you can determine when something should be done and whether you need to give immediate attention to it or whether it can wait.
Just as important as categorizing your tasks, is finding a way for you to manage the list. Task lists are ever changing and evolving. New tasks are added, some tasks are completed, others are no longer important. The sheer number of tasks on the list can be overwhelming, but the following ideas may help you:
- If you are a visual person, you might want to have a white board with tasks listed in order of importance.
- You can use the jar approach, with five separate jars, one for each category of importance.
- Task-management software is available for your laptop computer or for handheld electronics such as iPhones or BlackBerries.
- A notebook that allows for a continuous list can help, especially if you like to see the items that have been crossed out to help build a sense of accomplishment.
No matter which method you choose, prioritizing tasks is a must for managing deficits in executive functioning. Creating a system that works for you can also help in managing distractions and inattention.
Time management is all about focus and consistency. Put these basic skills into practice every day and you will see that managing your time will get easier and easier. Pretty soon, you may be so organized that you have too much free time on your hands! Good luck!
FromThe Complete Idiot’s Guide to Adult ADHD by Eileen Bailey and Donald Haupt, M.D.
