The Key To Better Time Management

How many times has this happened to you?

You decide you haven’t been as efficient as you could be, so you decide to take charge.

So, you open your calendar (or grab a pen and planner if you’re old school), and get to work setting up a new system.

30 minutes later, what you have isn’t a better grasp on your time, but rather a messy calendar with overlapping time slots that’s all too difficult to read.

Sometimes setting up these systems requires so much time and effort that they cut into actual selling time. Or, if you’re like some people I know, you use none at all and loathe the thought of a calendar controlling you days.

I like to think time management as being similar to making a budget. With a budget, I choose where and how my money will be spent for my most benefit—whether it’s keeping a roof over my head or taking a vacation. The budget is a simple tool that helps me live the life I want.

The same goes for a time planning system. Its purpose is to help you get the most out of the time that you have each day, week, month and year.

Make it a firm habit to sit down for a few minutes every evening to plan what you must do tomorrow. Done correctly, it won’t take more than ten to fifteen minutes of your time. The most important things you must do will already be in the forefront of your mind. List them in their order of importance. I recommend not listing more than six things on this list.

As you can imagine, planning a day with twenty tasks to complete could become quite stressful and that is the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve by using a system. This simple plan of listing just six things is the one and only system many highly successful people use. It’s simple. It’s effective. It’s powerful.

When you start making each day’s list the night before, your subconscious mind will work on that list all night, without disturbing your sleep, to help you solve your problems and achieve your goals. Your subconscious, however, can’t help unless you tune it in to you think needs to happen next.

Give this process several days to start flowing. Go over your list in a quiet place. See yourself involved with and completing the most difficult part of each thing on your list. Make the sessions brief and upbeat. See yourself happily enjoying the fact that you’ve successfully accomplished each of your goals for tomorrow.

Don’t concentrate on fear and dread of what you have to do. If you do that, you won’t sleep well and your subconscious may figure out ways to make you forget or otherwise avoid meeting what it sees as painful experiences.