How does good time management work?
A time management
system makes a user more successful to the extent it can push him into better
priority decisions.
Whatever your time-management trainer might tell you: Time management is not about saving minutes, it is all about objectives. The idea is not to perfectly stuff your appointment calendar, but to effectively cause success..
Which are the core tasks of time-management?
Good time-management should include several important components. For example:
- Clearly formulated goals and a general view of everything that has to be done
- An organization system favoring objectives instead of appointments and deadlines: The focus should never lie on the attitude of the “complete usage of our time”, but on the achievement of goals. It is like driving a car: The right direction is more important than high speed.
- Writing down plans instead of thinking them through in our heads makes us more successful
- Priorities: Shifting our focus from unimportant to important tasks is our biggest potential.
- Reduction of disorganization and interruptions
- Get a clean desktop. Do not tidy up, but relate documents to tasks
- Time-management has to create a balance between the different roles in our lifes, such as job, family, health, educations, and so on
Which tools are required for time-management?
Clear objectives and reasonable priorities can have the biggest effect on our success. These are therefore the most important components of a sophisticated time-management system.
- An organization system in written form used to be professional organizer books. Today, a clever time-management software for computers can replace them very effectively.
- Smartphones can be very dangerous, because they tend to detract us from our great goals more than any other modern organization tool by reminding us of the daily bits and pieces. Never exclusively work with smartphones!
Clarity and goal-orientation can
be created by the means of an outliner, an arrangement tool which helps us
to break down huge, unmanageable objectives and tasks to small, immediately
achievable steps (more ..). Other important tools
can be mind-maps or sector diagrams…- Priorities are extremely important: A time management system should not only
be able to show clear priorities. That is kind of
self-evident. It should urge the user to more and more thinking and deciding
about his priorities. A time management system makes a user
more successful to the extent it can push him into better priority
decisions.
- Rearrange tasks and goals in the order of importance for a project / a role in life
- Focus on the most important task respectively (balance between the different roles in life)
- From this focus area choose the 3 most important tasks (this is the so-called “Top-3-Mechanism”)
- See also meineZIELE Quickstart-Manual
- Reduction of disorganization and interruptions needs to be analyzable, for example check lists.
- For a clear desktop, a mechanism is required which can link paper documents, electronic documents, web-links and e-mails directly to the task we need them for, so that one click can bring us every document on the screen, whenever we need (so-called “1-Click-Filing”).
What is a typical approach?
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We recommend: It is just like with cars or refridgerators… do not try to tinker your own time-management yourself. Choose a professional system, which offers both the knowhow and all the important tools.
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Someone who is used to work with computers should definitely prefer a time-management software instead of purely paper-based organization systems.
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Proceed step by step. Time management is a huge field. Start with those parts which offer the greatest effect in your personal situation.
Which extent of time-management?
Time-management can be astonishingly effective – even on
a very low level. The three core methods of time-management
(Clarifying objectives + setting reasonable priorities + “relating instead of
tidying up”) are all part of the Easy-Mode of meineZIELE. This is
a perfect combination for all first-time users.
People with more complex management tasks find a lot of additional planning and organization tools in upgraded meineZIELE versions (like mZ Standard, mZ Plus and mZ Pro). Methods like team work, visualization tools (like mind maps, so-called success-curves, and so on) and the whole strategy-section are only three examples of the huge variety of different functions implemented in the highly recommended mZ Pro version.
How can meineZIELE help?
meineZIELE is a unique product in the sense that it consists of both the software and the knowhow. It supports you in all different parts of your personal working methods: From long-term strategy-planning to daily time-management - meineZIELE covers it all.
The most important thing about time-management: It is not useful
to focus eagerly on the saving of seconds or maybe
minutes, only to realize that one was been working for hours (sometimes even
days or months) on a rather irrelevant project. It is not about
completing as many tasks as possible, it is about handling the most important
ones.
meineZIELE helps you find the tasks, that really lead to success. It helps you clarify your goals, it helps you organize your tasks, it helps you succeed.
Next step: How to find a better strategy?
Or take a look to a working example How to work undisturbed
