Great Tips for Time Management

I took some time off during Spring break and headed to Dallas for a long weekend. Great thing about plane trips (especially when you experience long and unplanned delays); you catch up on your reading!

One article in Nonprofit World really hit home for me. “Never Enough Time” by Paul Lemberg provides some great tips for time management and improving work/ home balance.

Some of the author’s tips:

1. Create a list of priorities. Make them explicit and post them prominently on your desk. Evaluate how well these priorities advance the mission of your organization and your strategic plan.
2. Re-think your master “to do” list. Update it frequently and avoid creating a messy list that is a “hodgepodge” of items. Order the most important items first.
3. Start fresh everyday. Identify seven or fewer items of most importance to accomplish each day. Each item on the list must advance a critical issue for your organization.
   
4. Re-think meetings and rituals such as answering email or reading. Evaluate meetings and rituals against your highest priorities. If it doesn’t address a critical issue, don’t do it. Eliminate it, delegate it, or just get rid of it!
5. Evaluate your progress. At the end of each week, assess how you are doing against critical goals.
   

Some time management activities I’ve incorporated into my own life include innovative ways of adding exercise into a busy schedule. I always carry my walking shoes and work-out gear in the car and conduct meetings while walking (with many of you! You know who you are!) Or I walk to meetings that are within a mile or two of the offices.

I create my daily “to do” list for the next day at the end of the work day so I hit my desk ready to go in the morning.

And, of course, I always carry a giant tote bag of reading material with me on planes with the goal of emptying that tote before arrival at my destination. I save a great novel for the trip home as my reward.

What about you? Any tips to share? Post your comments…