by Silva Payne

Created on: November 25, 2009

Have you ever wondered how some people manage to fit more into their days that you do? Chances are, they are great at time management. It is a skill that is simple to develop and one that you may find comes naturally after a few small changes to your normal routine. Having a couple of time management tips under your belt is a great way to improve your quality of life, and can be useful to help a co-worker struggling under their workload.

Many people shy away from making lists, perhaps because they feel it shows a lack of organised thought. However, lists are a good tool to use to help you manage your time well. Knowing all the things that you must, and would like, to accomplish in a set time period will help you to prioritise and hopefully not forget anything important. Keeping your list visible, on a clip board for example, will also help you remember to look at it! Update your list daily and move items up and down, or remove and add new ones, as you complete your tasks. This will give you a sense of achievement and make it look and feel as if you are really getting somewhere.

By prioritising your "to do" tasks, you should be able to split your day or the allotted time span up into manageable chunks. It may be that you cannot complete a task in one day, but that is fine as long as you remember to add it to the following day's list. Remember to give yourself adequate comfort breaks, but be sensible with the amount you take. If you work solidly for a couple of hours, a 10-minute break is a good idea. Constantly getting up to make coffee every 20 minutes is not a productive way to complete your tasks.

Keeping your work-space organized is also a key way to help you manage time more effectively. The items you use most frequently should be closest to hand, but stored neatly so that you do not knock things (that coffee again) over when reaching for them. Use labels liberally so that you can see at a glance what something is or contains; colour coding can really help when you have a shelf full if files or folders that all look the same.

Doing more than one thing at a time requires a high level of organisation. If you end up having to repeat both tasks because neither were completed sufficiently well, then that was not a good use of your time. If you know you are not skilled in multi-tasking, concentrate on one task at a time, but do it thoroughly.

It is often worth having a plan of action in your mind or on paper that can be fitted around a range of tasks. In

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