7 Reasons You Need A Personal Management System

[Shabrina Akter]

Here are 7 things that I've found make a difference in my life by using a personal management system:

I don't have to think about what I'm supposed to do, it's written down.  For me this is a big one.  If I don't write it down, I spend lots of time and energy trying to remember what I'm supposed to do and whether I've let things fall through the cracks.

Having a management system allows me a method to review what I'm supposed to do.  Every Sunday I spend 45 minutes looking over my life, making decisions about what the next steps need to be to accomplish outcomes I'm interested in.

A personal management system allows me to evaluate whether something is important or not.  Too often I spend time chasing my tail.  Unfortunately when I do this, it's often chasing my tail around things that are urgent or appear to be urgent but aren't very important.  I bet you've spent time doing this also.

A personal management system allows me to focus on important, but not urgent projects.  Value for me and I bet for you is created when we work on things that are important, but don't have to be done today.  When I spend my time focusing on these types of projects I'm happier and feel like I'm doing useful things.

I'm able to keep track of my commitments to others.  Before I started using a personal management system I would often drop the ball on commitments I made to others.  Now this rarely, if ever, happens.  When I make a commitment to someone I enter it in my personal management system and it becomes part of my weekly review process.

It allows me to communicate when I'm behind.  I don't know about you but occasionally I'll find I'm running behind.  A personal management system puts this fact right in front of my nose every week.  It also reminds me that if this project involves someone else I need to contact them and give them an update on what's going on.  This is not only important when working with clients but everyone else in my life as well.

I get to decide consciously what I'm going to drop.  Sometimes I find that I just have too many things on my plate.  Some of them either have to go in the someday file or sometimes I just decide the project is not adding value to my life.  With a weekly review it becomes pretty obvious when a project falls in this category.  If I look at the project for several months and take no action, I know I need to move it out of my active list and either trash it or put it on ice.

Source: https://www.stage2planning.com/blog/bid/63777/7-reasons-you-need-a-personal-management-system