Leadership-life Fit: 7 Suggestions to Manage Your Time

Check out these tips from Dan Rockwell for keeping “time vampires” at bay.

• Press pause. Take a deep breath and stop before you delve into a time-consuming task to consider its purpose and alignment to your priorities.
• Track your “time donations” for one week. With whom are you spending your time? How much? Why? Are these wise investments of your time?
• Put a self-check on your calendar at the end of each day: Are you happy with how you spent your time today? What will help you tomorrow?
• Set a no-distraction timer for 25 minutes and stay focused on that single task for that full amount of time. Then, take a 5 minute break.
• Start each day with a list of the 3 most important things to accomplish (aligned to your goals and priorities) and force them into your calendar.
• Organize next week this week — schedule your priorities; align your calendar to your purpose.
• Be ready to respond when a “time vampire” shows up to suck away your minutes and hours. What will be your go-to line? What will you do?