Successful Time Management Habits

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

What if there was a way to live every day as if it was the most productive day of your life? A day when you finish everything on your list and feel an enormous sense of satisfaction & pride in a job well done. Wouldn’t it feel amazing to have highly effective time management skills? Get ready to take some notes on how to make this kind of day a reality. 🙂

Time management is something I struggle with from time to time. Like most of you, I have a lot of daily tasks to fit into a 24 hour period. I strive to be the best me that I can be, so I decided to research ways that successful people were managing their time. During my research, I kept seeing many of the same habits that resulted in excellent time management.

Here are the time management habits of successful people:

• Successful people set time limits on tasks. Use some type of timer, I personally opted to purchase several egg timers for around the house for setting time limits on each task I perform throughout the day. When we use a timer, we are less likely to lollygag or go off course. We will use our allotted time more efficiently because there is a set deadline in place.

• When successful people are performing a task, they do not shoot for perfection. They get the task done in a reasonable amount of time, they do not continue to mull over it, they just do a great job and move onto the next task. Shooting for perfection will cause procrastination. We will save “perfect” for Jesus, He is the only man who ever was without fault.
• Successful people do not multitask. They concentrate on the task at hand, focusing on one task at a time. They are efficient, they know that concentrated efforts, with few distractions, lead to a better product and in less amount of time. People who pride themselves on being a multitasker often produce subpar work and waste time and energy going back to fix their mistakes.

• Successful people delegate tasks out to others. We will have more productivity when we delegate less important tasks out to people who will perform them better.
• Successful people possess excellent communication skills. They have become masters in efficiency, taking the extra time to think about their communication before engaging with someone in conversation, whether it be email, phone or in person.

• Successful people give everything a proper place. They do not waste time chasing down lost items like keys, drink bottles, backpacks, or anything else that most of us parents use everyday. This was a real eye-opener for me. I can’t tell you how many times I would hear myself say “I need to find…” or “kids, can you find…” I realized that it really is annoying and that life would be so much better if I would just take the time to organize the things that we use every day.
• Successful people know when to take a break. When we sit at a task for too long, our productivity goes down substantially. We need to pay attention to our attention span & creativity and know when it’s time to take a break.

Many people allow their schedule to drive them, instead of the other way around. The more we control our calendar, the easier it will be to make room for the important things and the unexpected circumstances that often arise.

I pray that knowing these habits has blessed you like it blessed me.

Blessings, Myra <3