Organizational Skills

How we organize our time often determines how successful we'll be not how much time we actually have.

Organizing your time teaches you to: 1) Prioritize 2) Be on time 3) Have more time 4) Reduce stress 5) Be more selective

Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.

By organizing your time, you're more likely to remain focussed on the important things that have to be accomplished that day. This helps you to avoid distractions.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. This means saying "no" to what is not important and "yes" to what is.

Prioritize

Be more selective

Be on time

To have more time

To reduce stress

Quality

Four key steps to organizing your time:

Quality Control

Task list optimization: Break your list into 1s which are those items which should be completed first and 2s which are items that could be postponed if necessary

Create a weekly schedule broken down day by day

Lean to say NO like a maniac to your time wasters. You can't let critical tasks go undone because of unimportant distractions.

Slang or casual words such as "uh-huh", Yep, and Yeah are not appropriate in a business setting.

Maintain a service-oriented attitude

What things can I delegate to my administrative assistant?

Many people wast time because they don't plan their activities effectively.

Do your most challenging tasks first when you have the most energy.

According to a study detailed in the New York Times, students who procrastinate get more cold and flu symptoms, more digestive problems, and tend to have unhealthy lifestyles. The study found that those who procrastinate also get less sleep and have problems regulating their behavior.

Four Reasons for Procrastination 1) Perfectionism, which can create frustration and a reluctance to start projects for fear that they won't be perfect. 2) Anger/hostility. If a person is unhappy with a boss or professor they may delay progress or withhold their own best efforts as a way of "getting even." 3) Low frustration tolerance. If someone is overwhelmed by a project, they may feel that it's reasonable to put it off for awhile until your frustration subsides. 4) Self-deprication, or putting down one's own skills, abilities, and accomplishments. If someone does this repeatedly, he or she may eventually come to believe that they are incapable of completing projects and thus put them off.

When you're dragging your feet on a task that seems endless or insurmountable, break it down into simpler components.

Perfection can't be expected in this world.

The search for perfection often turns responsible people into procrastinators. If you try to make everything perfect, you'll end up driving yourself crazy. You'll put in needless hours of work that could be spent on something more important. Nothing is ever perfect; it can merely be improved.

If we had time to organize, we'd be less harried. But if we were less harried, we would have time to organize.

Build in time for quiet reflection, evaluate what you are doing and ask yourself if you are on the right track.

Make a long list of activities you engage in and grade them A through D. Make a new list every six months and cut out the activities that grade C or D.

Trying to do a task too quickly, you're apt to make mistakes - mistakes that will cost you time and energy later. More on back.

With self-discipline, all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like an impossible dream.