Have you ever come home with a feeling that you didn’t accomplish anything you wanted today? Everyone have days like this, sometimes we can't help it, but if this is happening regularly, you should take a look at your time management. Time is one of those few things that a man can’t buy and in today’s fast, crazy technology time - time management is crucial for success. It’ crucial for everyone – students, doctors, businessmen, not just CEOs, team leaders, project managers.

I hope that the following approaches to time management will help you make your own time management strategy, because we are all different and the best solution for everyone simply doesn’t exist. Let's take a look at some popular time managment tips:

• Efficiency vs. Effectiveness. This is one the most crucial factors in time management. Efficiency – when you do task using less effort. Effectiveness – when first of all you think if the task needs to be done at all. As you see effectiveness should come first in most of the time.
• Goals. Always try to set long term and short term goals, make them as clear as possible. For example let’s say that long term goal is to pass an exam, then you should set a couple short term goals, like – read ten pages every day of study material, solve tests every two days etc. Setting clearly stated goals helps to change the attitude and the approach to the problem.

• Lists. Make sure that every morning you write down the tasks that you want to accomplish that day (so called “To Do” list). If you didn’t accomplish something, then the next morning put the tasks left from the other day on the top of your list. You will not only be more organized, the real value is that you will be planning your activities daily. Always take a moment to review your list, to see if what you will be working helps you reach the goals in the best and fastest way.
• Priorities. You can set your priorities by urgency or by importance. I think that it’s a common mistake when priorities are set based on urgency (you spend so much time on urgent issues that you start to worry about the project when the deadline is tomorrow). Set priorities first by importance, then by urgency. On my next post I’ll explain the Dwight D. Eisenhower matrix (Importance vs. Urgency).
• 70/30 rule. Don’t plan your whole day, leave 30% of your time for emergencies, unplanned assignments etc. if you plan every minute of your time you’ll get angry and nervous when your daily plan fails.
• NO. You must learn to say no. Often people are overloaded and the managers don’t even know about it. Of course I don’t think that many of us can tell our bosses “NO”, though it’s critical to explain how new tasks will take you away from a more important work.

There is much more to be said on this topic, there are a lot practices not included here, i will try to cover them in my other posts about time management, meanwhile you can think and share how to manage time. I hope that our project management, collaboration and knowledge sharing tool will be a useful companion in your way to success, and remember that first of all you need to change your attitude and determine what success means to you. Time management is most effective when you can do it without any efforts, without even noticing that you are actually doing something :)