Feeling a sense of overwhelm and chaos during your day? Think about your time management and organizational skills. If you do not manage your time or keep things in their place, this may generate undue stress in your life and diminish productivity.  You’ve all been there and felt the weight of the day pressing down hard as the clock keeps ticking away. Things are piling up. You feel as though you are being productive but in actuality, you are spinning the wheels and only putting out fires or moving from one thing to the next without truly accomplishing anything meaningful.

The reason time management gadgets and systems don’t work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don’t live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time. Joe Matthews, Don Debolt, Deb Percival

Hitting the panic button, you hop on the track of overdrive, further increasing the craze. It can be an endless cycle only causing further anxiety and frustration.

STOP and slow down. It’s time to assess the situation, your goals, and desired outcomes.

Examine your project and task list. What does it look like to you?

Are there real deadlines or did you create your own crisis with personally imposed limits?

I know I have done this, but at the end of the day, I realized, with an AH-HA moment, that I did it to myself with self-imposed deadlines. Not every single thing is a must-do at this very moment. If you begin to try and tackle every sticky note, your focus and efforts are diminished.  Your efficiency is decreased leaving you with a sense of dread for the next day. The next list.

“Time management” takes discipline and commitment. There are many hindrances to time management but they all relate back to how you regulate your life and productivity levels. It is a matter of the daily choices you make and how you set your priorities. If something is that important to you, then you will get it done; otherwise, you will make excuses. Your success depends on getting the most out of each day.

Task Management Tips:

1. What are the priorities? The absolutes that must be done today?
2. Triage those by order of importance.
3. How many of these items must ONLY you do or can you delegate any of them?
4. After you determine these first three, then create your action steps for each.
5. Breathe again and take a few minutes to realize you can do this.
6. Jump into the fire and set a timer, giving yourself 30-60 minutes of dedicated focus (At the ping of the timer, take a short break).
7. Tune out distractions.
8. Disable notifications:  Stay away from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and text messages – whatever your nemesis may be at this moment. You have work to do that requires 100% of your brainpower without multi-tasking.

“You cannot run at full throttle when applying your mindset to all of the different things running through your head. Focusing is the key to manifesting your desires.” – Stephen Richards

Thinking in terms of real-time actions and your goals for the day will help to ensure you better manage yourself and your time. Creating your routines, processes, and systems will keep you on task and being productive; otherwise, the day may seem like a tornado of activity with a shattered foundation and half done To-Do list.  Your business can’t operate at this level and neither can you.  Get a handle on your task management and revel in an environment of enhanced productivity.

What keeps you sane? Sound off and share your tips on managing your To-Do lists and projects.