Tips to Take Control of Your Time

• Log how you are spending your time to identify how you can better use your time.
• Identify your goals and priorities for the day, week, month, year or even five years. How can you modify your current daily tasks to meet your goals?
• Attend to your immediate time needs.
• Record all important dates and deadlines in a calendar.
• Identify hours in the day that are “open” and keep them open for personal time.
• Make time for you, you are your number one priority each day.
• Think small, achievable, manageable. Divide large goals into small goals and schedule them on your calendar.
• Reward yourself for completing both small and large tasks.
• Spend time at the beginning of each week planning how you will spend your time for the week. And, the evening before, plan what you want and need to get done within the next 24 hours. You will rest much better knowing you have organized the next day.
• Overestimate how long it will take you to do a task, just in case.
• Sometimes we lose control of time or have interruptions and/or distractions. Try to avoid these when possible. For example, close your door, don’t answer the phone, work in a quiet environment, work during your peak hours, and learn to say “no.”