Ten Ways to Take Control of Your Day

The way you manage your time, affects your stress level and health, while having an impact on others too.

Below are 10 time management tips for work and home.

  1. Analyze how you spend your time. Examine your routine and determine where you can make changes.
  2. Make a to-do list. Prioritize with the most pressing tasks at the top. This gives you a place to start and a vision of 'one thing at a time'.
  3. Do it. If it needs to be done immediately, don’t put it off.
  4. Dump it. If it’s not necessary, forget about it. Eliminate time wasters.
  5. Delegate it. Are there tasks that are not an effective use of your time? Delegate them and ask for help.
  6. Defer it. If it really doesn’t need to be done now, it can wait.
  7. Sometimes the answer is 'no'. Repeat after me, ' I would really love to help, but I can’t. I’m sorry.'
  8. Start early and on time. Block off allotted amounts of times for tasks and stick to it. Playing catch up all day can drag you down.
  9. Take time for yourself. The infamous airline announcement tells adults to take oxygen for themselves in an emergency before helping others. That says a lot.
  10. Become email efficient. Set aside time for checking email, rather than looking each time a new message comes in. Reduce the overall time consumed by responding to each email right after reading it. If it doesn’t require an answer at all, delete it.

"How did it get late so soon?"   Dr. Seuss