Editor's Notes: I can't believe it's already August. Things are heating up here in Atlanta. I hope things are heating up in your business. Today's article talks about guarding your productive time. It's important that you block out time to do certain tasks that must get done. If this means ignoring the phone, then do that. One way to make sure that you don't get interrupted is to hire yourself a good virtual assistant. When you need to have uninterrupted time you could forward your calls and emails to your virtual assistant and then you could focus on getting your work done. One more thing. I'm experimenting with using an html format. If things don't come out right, shoot me an email and I'll send you a text version. You can email me at deanna.spencer(at)gmail.com
Time Management Program - Do You Guard Your Time? By Cheryl Clausen
Time management programs help you to realize the importance of guarding your productive time. You don’t realize how important it is to control and guard your productive time. If you did you would already be doing it. When you don’t guard your productive time other people and events will continue to interrupt you, and your work just keeps piling up. You end up with many projects in various stages of completion and few completed projects.
If you don’t guard your productive time there isn’t a time management program that will help you. You guard your productive time by learning to focus on your work and only your work during that time period. You guard your productive time by blocking out time periods when you will only work on your most important things.
You have certain times of the day when you are at your peak. Block out these peak performance periods for productive activities only. Don’t allow others to force commitments on you that prevent you from working on your most productive activities during your peak times. A time management program means that you are managing when and how you are using your time, and then making a commitment to yourself to stick with the program that works best for you.
A time management program means that you will need to train yourself first and then those around you. Train yourself first to start blocking out these prime production times for the week each and every week before the week even starts. Others will continue to make unscheduled interruptions so you have to retrain them to understand that when they come to you unexpectedly, you will politely acknowledge them and their topic and then schedule a later time to address their need.
A time management program should fit you and your needs rather than you fitting into a time management program. When you try to fit into something that doesn’t fit your needs there is little hope of it working for you long-term. Discover what works best for you and then stick with it.
Would you like to learn more about your time behaviors? Try this Time Management Analysis and find out where your opportunities for improvement are.