Do you sleep all night, wake in the morning feeling amazing, start your day with some stretching and coffee, drive to work then realize you forgot your computer. Now what? Turn around and go back home! This thows you off, so you are now running late. You are feeling stressed because you are late for a meeting which you are the moderator for.
This is only one event in your day that causes stress, what about the other events that are stress producing?
- fighting kids
- traffic
- burnt food
- irritable boss
- helping kids with homework
- job duties
- washer broke
- and so on……
Can you relate?
in regard to the above scenario, what could you have done differently?
Managing your time makes it easier for you to efficiently get things done. This means get more organized and start planning ahead.
The scenerio above happens a lot……here are a few tips:
- Have your work gear set out the night before or place it in your car to be ready for your work day. This way you cannot forget it.
- You knew you would be late, call your office staff and alert them ASAP, possibly move the start time of the meeting or join the meeting via phone.
- Have a backup plan.
By having a plan, you will not forget your “tools” needed for the day, therefore you will not have to backtrack causing your schedule to run behind.
Organization is a skill that can be learned!
Here are some tips for getting organized!
- Get a planner and schedule your to-dos in the planner. Actually schedule the time that you “think” it will take for the task to get done. Buy setting a time limit it will help you to stay focused in order to complete each task in a timely manner.
- Get things ready the night before. Pack lunches, lay out clothes, sleep in your workout clothes.
- Review your planner/schedule each night before bed so you know what to expect for the next day. Review your planner/schedule each morning to know what to expaect that day. You don’t wnat any surprises;)
- Give everyone in the house a chore list. Divide up the work.
- Set boundaries at home, work and in your personal life to minimize the overwhelm and the number of activites on your daily to-do list.
- Quantify your tasks. Do the most important tasks first to make sure they get done.
- Believe it or not, try not to multi-task. Studies show that when you multi-task, it actually takes longer to get things done. You are not focusing on one area, you end up focusing on several things at the same time, this causes your brain to be unable to focus on one thing at a time. This is how you will make mistakes, most likely needing to redo what you did. This is double the work.
- Do not procrastinate. When you put things off all of your tasks start to build up causing more stress.
- Make sure you have set goals and try to stick to them.
- Remove unneccesary tasks!
You cannot plan for things to go wrong but you can have a plan in case something does go wrong. In other words, what if there is bad traffic and you will be late for work?
By planning ahead for this, you would leave your house earlier to make sure there is enough time to get through traffic (especially if you know there will be traffic).
Good time management means you are working smarter, not harder. Imagine how much you would get done. You would get more done in less time. This would leave you more time to do the things you enjoy.
So, the next time your day starts off bright and sunny, then quickly turns to grey and cloudy, STOP.
Think about what ways you can handle this change. Do you have the ability to make a quick adjustment? If so, how can you adjust? It may not be the way you had planned, but if it gets the job done in an efficient and timely manner, that is what will keep your day moving and you less stressed.
Let me know if you need help working on time management and decraesing stress!
XoXo
Tina