Time Management For Working Mothers

Do you struggle to find time for all the things you want to do? Is overtime becoming the norm for you? Do you feel like you are missing out on the best things in life because you don't have enough time?

If you do it is okay as most of us feel like this on a regular basis. It could be that the pressures of your professional life are getting you down. Or you just do not have enough leisure time to pursue your hobbies and do the things you enjoy.

However, don't worry just yet. There is a solution to this problem and it is far easier than you might think. Simply by changing the way you approach the use of your time you can find the hours to do all the things you want to, and even have some time left over. Not only will this help you manage your time more effectively, it can help you to achieve the things you really want to in life.

Time Management For Working Mothers - Manage yourself

We have only so much time in each day. This is something that will not change and we can do nothing about it. Time can not be changed, but the way you approach it can. This is the secret of effective time management. You must train yourself to focus on the things that really matter to you and spend your time on these things only. Everything else should be eliminated from your life.

It is important to point out at this stage that making the changes necessary to manage your time effectively can mean making some fundamental changes in your lifestyle. For this reason it is important to take it at your own pace and make one change at a time. If you bite off more than you can chew at the beginning there is a chance you may fail.

Time Management For Working Mothers - Know yourself

To really manage your time effectively you must first learn to know yourself. With the pressures of modern life it is easy to lose sight of what we really want in our lives. For most people, this is an unfortunate fact of life.

So before you can really begin to look at your time management you need to figure out what you want out of life. You need to get in touch with yourself and discover your vision. Try to remember yourself as a child or as a young adult when you felt you could achieve anything. How did your dream life look then, what did you really want in your heart? This could help you to get in touch with your vision. No doubt, some priorities will have changed, but many will have remained the same.

Also ask yourself how you would like your personal and professional life to be. And think about what is possible for you and what you can really achieve. This is your vision.

Where are you now?

If you followed the steps above you should be able to picture your ideal life accurately. Now comes the scary part. You need to look at your life now and compare it to your vision, to how you would really like your life to be like. Be prepared for a shock here as there will most likely be a vast difference between the two.

Don't worry if this is the case as bridging the gap between your ideal reality and your life now is much easier than you would expect. Many people think effective time management is all about calendars and diaries. This is not the case. Effective time management goes much deeper than that and can make major changes to the way you live your life.

Achieving your ideal reality will involve little changes and big changes in your life. A small change would be something like taking a walk every evening. A big change might be starting up your own business. There is a big difference between the two, but both goals are attainable. You need to look at how you spend your days and plan your time with a view to achieving these goals.

Planning your day.

You should start by picking two things you want to achieve, one big and one small. Now, you want to think of one small step you can take towards achieving these that you can incorporate into one day. If you can complete the one step towards achieving each goal then you have made an excellent start.

In truth, there is much more to it than this but this will show you that it is far from impossible and can be very rewarding. Now you need to make sure that everything you do each day is taking you towards your goals, and that you plan in such a way that you complete all of the tasks you need to do each day.

This is why you need a clear time plan for every day. You need to have a very clear idea of what needs to be done, how long it will take, and when it is going to be done. At the beginning it can be difficult to know how long each task will take so it may be a good idea to keep a time log for a week before starting to keep a time plan. In your time log you need to write down what you do every day and how long it takes. Keeping a time log for a week should give you a clear picture of how long the various tasks you need to do take. When you know this you can plan your days much more accurately and effectively.

The 4 Ds of time management

Now, as you make your time plan for each day you need to decide how to handle the various tasks that need doing, and how to deal with any new tasks that may arise. So let me introduce you to the four Ds of self-management. Which are:

* Do it - This needs to be done immediately. * Delegate it - It needs to be done, but someone else can take care of it. * Dump it - This is not important, thrash it. * Defer it - This needs doing but not now, so it can wait.

Most, if not all, of the tasks and activities day can be put into these categories.

Time wasters

And let's not forget time wasters. Time wasters can destroy any attempt at effective time management if they are not identified and eliminated. The biggest problem is that they are often very hard to identify because they can be very trivial.

Examples of common time wasters are :

* Lack of planning or bad planning - Develop a good filing system and know how you are going to spend your days. Being neat in your habits will help you manage your time more effectively.

* Procrastination - Some things need to be done now. Don't get into the habit of putting things off unnecessarily.

* Not delegating - No one person can be good at everything. You need to delegate tasks that eat into your time unnecessarily to other people.

* Interruptions - Chatty colleagues, needless phonecalls, noisy surroundings. These can all distract you from the task at hand and should be removed.

These are just a few of the time wasters that could be affecting your effective time management.

These pointers should help you in your first steps towards effective time management. If you take this process in small steps it will be much easier to incorporate the necessary changes into your life. Each of these small steps will bring you closer to your vision and leave you with time to do all of the things you want each day.

Many people struggle to find the time to do the things they want to. There are only 24 hours in a day and that is never going to change. However, we can change how we look at time and how we use it to help us lead a fuller and more productive life.

If you have a to do list that is longer than your arm and only limited time available you are probably wondering how you can get it all done. Most likely you are feeling stressed out and helpless. However, with a little commitment and effort you can learn how to manage your time more effectively.

The first thing you need to do is to take a step back from your life and try to look at it objectively. Take some time to consider what in life means the most to you and what you really want to achieve. Once you decide what is most important to you, you can begin to move towards more effective time management.

Write down what is important to you and compare it to how you plan to spend the coming days. There will most likely be many things that are not important to you and that are not essential to get done. First remove these from your list and you will find that your schedule now looks much more manageable.

There will, of course, remain some things on the list that are not important to you that simply have to be done. At the beginning, at least, this will be a fact of life. However, effective time management can lead to some life-changing choices and help you achieve what you really want in your life.

The mismatches between how you currently spend your time and how you would like to spend your time can be very revealing as they help you identify where you need to make changes. Some of these changes may be very small while others may be life changing.

You can start on the small changes right away. These could include simple things like getting fit or learning a new hobby so all you will need to do is schedule a little time to devote to these each day.

Bigger changes will require a lot more thought and commitment, but are achievable. Perhaps you want to move house or change profession. You cannot do things like this at the drop of a hat so you need to identify the steps you need to take to achieve them.

I encourage you to break these steps into small, manageable tasks that can be easily scheduled. Using the changing profession example, a first task might be to research courses available to train you in the skills you need for your chosen new profession. This small task can easily be scheduled into one of your days. Once you begin to take action to move you in the right direction you will feel more satisfied with your life.

If things are getting on top of you and you feel like there simply aren't enough hours in the day, it may be time to take a step back and reevaluate your situation. With the pressures of modern life it is easy to lose focus on the goals that are genuinely important to us. If this sounds like you, it is probably time to stop and take a closer look at how you really want to spend your time.

I invite you to start this right away. Commit now to a time, perhaps away from your usual distractions when you can sit down and be alone with yourself and your thoughts. Then with pen and paper in hand, you can look at how you are spending your time now and how ideally you want to spend your time in the future. You need to discover your own motivation and turn it into a compelling reason to act.

Once you are clear about your own motivations, you will use these as a constant reminder in order to even out the ups and downs. These reasons will help you through the tough times or when you feel it is not worth the effort.

When you have gained a clear idea of your goals for the future and how you wish to spend your time you next need to look at how you are actually spending your time now. First of all you should ask yourself the following questions:

%u2022 What does my life both personally and professionally look like and feel like today?

%u2022 What am I currently spending my time on?

Write down everything that comes to mind. Think about your work, who you spend your time with, your living environment and your income. Also, try to pinpoint the things that are missing from your life as these will hold the key to your using your time more effectively in the future.

The best way to discover where you spend your time is by using a time log. A time log is a record of how you use your time, day in and day out. It is very important that you keep one so that you can see exactly where your time is spent.

If you do this even for just one week you will get a clear idea of how you really spend your time and will probably see some surprising results. Now, that you have a clear idea of how you want to spend your time and how you really pass the hours, it is time to compare the two.

When you do this you will most likely see huge differences between them. I appreciate this may feel daunting and I encourage you to keep going, you are already moving in the right direction.

You will see that change is required, sometimes big and sometimes small. Now you can begin to take steps to spending your time in a way that will make these changes come about. Start with the small things and set yourself realistic short-term goals. Basically, take it step by step. Continue to take small steps towards your goals and later you can move onto some of the bigger changes you may need to make.