Proper Time Management Can Award You Precious Medals

[Shamim Ansary]

How NOT to Live an Overloaded Life

Give margin to your life in the form of emotional, physical, financial and time reserves

Don’t fill your life up to the capacity. Give yourself margin. Give yourself space to breath. You might not achieve as much as other people in the short term, but you will live a happier and more enjoyable life in the long term.

Here are eight things you can do to give margin to your life:

1. Trim your commitments

You might want to do many things, but the fact is you can’t do everything you want. Trying to do too much will only deplete your physical and mental energy. Not only that, it might also take time away from your relationships.

So, instead of taking everything that comes your way, use the 80/20 rule to choose only the most essential ones. If you already have too many commitments, go over them and trim the non-essential ones. Learn to say no without feeling guilty.

2. Set boundaries

Don’t fill up your time with work. Set boundaries. For example, you might decide not to touch your work above 6 p.m. so that you can focus on your family. Or you might decide to take one or two days off every week. Everyone has different situations, so set the boundaries that work for you.

3. Spend less than you earn

This is a basic principle of personal finance but it’s an easy one to forget, especially in this age of credit cards. Credit cards make it easy for people to spend money they don’t have. As a result, many people fall into financial troubles.

The first thing you need to do is tracking your spending. The reason is that it can give you understanding of how you actually spend your money.

After that, you can take action to control your expenses. Remove unnecessary expenses. Find cheaper ways to do things. This requires sacrifices but it’s good for you in the long term.

4. Build an emergency fund

Again, this is a basic principle of personal finance. You need to build an emergency fund for unexpected situations so that you can handle them when they come.

There are different opinions about how big an emergency fund should be, but make it at least three months’ worth of your (and your family’s) living expenses.

5. Make time to exercise

Exercise can boost your personal energy and keep your energy level high throughout the day. So make it a habit to exercise, either by yourself or with a friend. You will be more productive and less stressed as a result.

6. Have enough rest

Your body needs enough rest to function properly. Therefore don’t sacrifice your sleep time for work or any other activities. Make sure that you get 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night.

7. Pray or meditate

Doing this can boost your mental energy and give you peace of mind. You can then think more clearly and stay calm throughout the day.

8. Make quality time for relationships

Your relationships are great source of mental energy. Not only should you make time for them, but also you should make sure that it’s quality time. Give your full attention to the people you are with. Let them feel that you appreciate them.

[Shamim Ansary]

6 Time Management Tips That Will Get You Promoted

1. Ask yourself and your boss what the best use of your time is

If you don’t know exactly what your boss feels is the best use of your time and what the highest value activity is for you, ask! It is by doing that or those tasks that you can move forward quickly. Building the most value will get you noticed and to do that you have to find out what it is you are expected to do.

2. Ask your boss to help you clear away other tasks so that you can focus on the highest value task

Once you have found out what your most important task is you will probably notice that only a small portion of your time is spent on it. Talk to your boss about it and see if you can get rid of or delegate some of the tasks to other people so you can spend your time building as much value as possible to the company.

3. Plan your week so that you spend as much time as possible working on the most important task

Make a weekly plan trying to free up as much time as possible to your important task. List everything you do in a week and figure out how you can get the most possible out of your workday.

4. Organize each day

Once you have planned your weeks you can start organizing each day. What is most important? What needs to be done first? What second? Once you have that daily plan, get to it and start checking them off one by one.

5. Get in earlier, work harder, stay later

By working focused you will get a lot more done then your peers. But if you also make the great impression of being first to the office and the last to leave whilst all the while producing at a high rate, you will get noticed, appreciated and promoted.

6. Be proactive

Don’t let the circumstances control you. Instead, control the circumstances. If you want to be promoted you have to show that you can shoulder the responsibility. Ask for more responsibility and when you get it, do it well and do it fast!

Even if you aren’t given responsibility, you can do like my wife. She noticed that the signs weren’t working; the customers didn’t know instantly what they were offering. So she made new ones and presented them to her bosses, they liked them and before weeks end they were using her ads.

The fact that she proved she could take more responsibility is one of the reasons she was promoted over the others.

Conclusion

Your career is your choice. If you want to move forward quickly you have it within you. If you don’t do what it takes, you will not get promoted. Don’t be reactive and let others control your life. Take control of your future and do all that you can to be the best employee and the obvious choice to advancement.

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/category/time-management/