It’s no wonder you’re overwhelmed— you have way too much on your plate. There’s too much to do and too little time to do it.
You’re not alone. Very few people truly know how to manage their time well. It’s often because they have bad habits related to time management.
Here’s a test for you— do you have a clear idea of what your work goals and objectives are every day? Do you know why you’re doing what you’re doing? Are you easily distracted and do you constantly find yourself checking email and social media? Do you feel that you put in a solid daily effort? Are you tired at the end of the day but can’t put your finger on what you really accomplished that matters?
A fact that I find whips people back to reality is that we all have the same 24 hours in a day.
There are people out there who achieve their goals much more quickly than the average person. The self-made millionaires and billionaires out there have the same amount of time to work each day as you do.
We all have lofty goals when it comes to time management. Are you disappointed in yourself as to how you manage your own time?
You want to be able to manage your time as well as those millionaires and billionaires. You want to be able to work less and earn more money, whether you work for yourself or you work for an employer.
If you could get more done, you reason, your life would be so much happier. You wouldn’t be as overwhelmed. You wouldn’t have too much on your plate. You’d be more like the people you aspire to be. You’d have more time to do other things you love, like spend more time with your family and friends, or pursuing your hobbies.
Let’s go back to your current situation— bad time management habits. These bad habits hold you back in more ways than one. Habits become sort of second nature for you. They happen on autopilot, infecting your actions and mindset. They’re not productive; they just happen.
It can feel impossible to break away from these bad habits. Here’s the good news: It’s NOT impossible! You can easily become more productive and it can happen more quickly than you think.
I’ll share some methods that will help you change in major ways. Following these tips can help you live the productive life of your dreams.
It’s time to change your bad habits. It’s time to drop the bad and grab hold of new, positive habits that will help you get a lot more done.
It’s time you were able to approach your work with happiness and a feeling of empowerment. Right now, your work style probably makes you feel slow, disorganized, and incompetent. No worries—that’s a thing of the past now.
Why it’s Really Hard to Manage Your Time
First, let’s talk more about why it’s hard to manage your time. A big part of the reason is because we live in an age with unlimited distractions. There are the typical distractions of family and life. Those are necessary distractions that can be managed better.
There are also unproductive, time-wasting distractions that should be eliminated.
Distractions All Around
You can do something about most of the distractions you encounter. If you think about your typical workday, how many times do you tend to check your email and social media accounts? How many times do you find yourself watching funny videos on YouTube or reading an update from your favorite blogger? Those are the kind of distractions you need to do something about.
There are also distractions in your environment. For instance, maybe you’re trying to work in a cluttered room or at a cluttered desk. Maybe there’s a lot of noise around you – either from other people working, your family (if you work from home), street noise, sirens, and so on.
The good news is that most of these distractions can be handled. You can stop yourself from wasting time online. You can do something about your cluttered environment, your cluttered mind, and time-wasting distractions. You can change a lot about your work environment and mindset, therefore eliminating most of the distractions you’ll encounter.
Dealing with Uncertainty
Another reason it’s hard to manage your time is because you are probably dealing with uncertainty. Are you very clear on your goals? Do you know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? Do you have huge work projects looming in front of you and you don’t know what to do first?
Part of successfully managing your time is eliminating uncertainty. You need to have a solid grasp on your personal goals and your work goals. It’s no wonder that you don’t get a lot done if you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to be working on every day and why.
Indeed, one of the major things that separates successful people from those who are less successful is that successful people know exactly what their goals are.
Not only do they know what their goals are, but they have most likely written them down and set time frames for their completion. They know exactly which actions they can take to accomplish their goals. They don’t give up – they move forward until they have exactly what they want.
I’m going to share several time management tricks throughout IMIT that will help you. You’ll find methods that will help you figure out your goals and the steps you need to take to achieve your goals.
These tips are actually habits that will be helpful for you to adopt – and quickly.
By the way—even just one or two of these tips you read throughout IMIT could be life changing for you. For instance, you can almost instantly improve your time management, even if the only thing you do is set goals and make to-do lists for yourself (in the way I show you), while making time for reflection and action.
So you can rest more easily now, even though you’ll learn many tips in IMIT, you don’t have to do them all at once, you can pick which one(s) you want to focus on first, master that, and go from there if you need more help.
Focusing On the Wrong Things
Yet another reason why it’s difficult to manage your time is because you may be focusing on the wrong things. Do you feel a lot of resistance while you’re working? Are you’re absolutely sure you’re in the right line of work for your temperament and goals? If you feel a lot of resistance and uncertainty about what you’re doing, then it may be time to evaluate your path.
I work with a lot of entrepreneurs. I find that many people who want to manage their time well and live the life of their dreams end up wanting to create their ideal life by starting their own business.
Whether that’s the case for you or not, you are in charge of your life. If you’ve always dreamed of doing something else, do it. If you know that you are not in the right line of work, make a change.
If you’re working on something you know you’re meant to do, it will be so much easier for you to get your work done. You’ll wake up looking forward to your day – ready to conquer your to-do list and achieve your goals. Your work will revitalize you at every turn.
It’s Easy… But It Won’t Always Feel Easy
By the way, I don’t mean to imply that it will always feel easy to develop better time management habits. I love what I do, but I have good days and bad days.
But it’s more than worth it because my business is aligned with my soul and values. I’m doing what I love to do – and that’s helping others succeed, while still making enough income to have a nice standard of living for my family and me.
Even though I have ups and downs, it’s a pleasure to wake up every morning and get to do what I love to do. That’s a pleasure you deserve as well. If you love what you do, managing your time well will become so much easier.
The fact of the matter is that we live in a distracting time and it’s hard to get anything done if you don’t have the right strategies and habits. You probably feel the crunch of financial pressure looming above you at all times. You have a lot of responsibilities when it comes to your family and friends.
The stress you feel from your work, your lack of solid and specific goals, and from your uncertainty might be spilling over to other areas of your life. This stress and uncertainty often leads to procrastination—that’s a problem it’s time to solve. Again, what you’ll read and learn in IMIT will help you—read one of my time management sections a day and your business will be better for it.
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