There are countless ways of improving your time management and increasing your efficiency. Simply do a Google search for “time management” and you will have pages of resources, web pages, blog posts, and books from which to choose. For example, here is a good place to start. So is this just another blog post on time management to add to the list? Well, technically yes. But instead of giving you specific techniques, this blog post is about how to actually start doing some of those helpful suggestions.
Whether it is time management or another helpful area of improvement, the risk of getting too much information about ways to improve your routines, the greater the chance of feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information, which then leads to a barrier of action. Information overload quickly leads to good intentions fading away and inaction settling in. So when you are feeling overwhelmed with suggestions, how can you turn the intention to act into action?
When planning the start of a journey, the most important step is the first step. Here are some simple ways to help decide where to start in that journey.
- Low hanging fruit: Start with the easiest improvement that you can make. Having small successes can increase motivation to make more difficult changes.
- Start with your interests: Despite the grand goal at the end of your journey, it can be advantageous to reward yourself early (with improving your performance in areas that are most personally rewarding).
- Use accountability: Tell someone else what your plans are and ask that person to check in with you often.
- Break down goals (even small goals) into much smaller steps: The fastest way to halt progress is to make the next step unreachable. Whenever it seems like the next step is out of reach, break down the goal into many small steps.
It’s always a good idea to constantly improve how you operate. So stay active in seeking ways to improve yourself and make each goal attainable.
And here are great resources to help you make progress.
Shawn Healy, PhD
