3 Ways to Boost Your Time Management Effectiveness and Enjoy A More Fulfilling Life

There’s an old saying that if you want help with getting something done, ask a busy person to help you. Everyone knows at least one person like this – the person who always manages to cross everything off their list by the end of the day or week.

Part of their ability to consistently manage their time effectively is based on the fact that they have a system they follow. The better the system, like with the Pareto Principle which states that roughly 80% of our results come from 20% of our work, the more likely someone is to look like they just have a talent for managing their time.

Professionals have used this principle to mercilessly reschedule their time and whittle down their client/customer lists to build a stronger business platform. But truly rounded professionals have learned that this principle can be applied to their personal lives as well. From a strictly time management perspective, what activities are you participating in outside of work that have a positive impact on your life?

Would it surprise you to learn that the average person spends almost 5 hours a day in front of the TV? Perhaps, if the whole family is watching TV together, it could be called “family” time, but let’s not kid ourselves. Until we’re ready to take an honest look at the way we spend our time outside of work too, we will continue to miss opportunities for identifying the 20% of our activities that will bring us 80% of our happiness, relaxation, joy, love, sense of contribution, and peace. Here are 3 ideas that might help you identify your outside-of-work 20%.

1.  Make a list of all your family and friends and decide which category each person fits into. This can be tough to do, but asking and answering these questions will help. 

• If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, who would you pick to spend today with? 
• If you were going to live another 80 years, who would you want to spend all that time with?

2.  Remember that you are either in or out of someone else’s 20%. Sometimes we just assume we’re in simply because we’re family or a friend. But think about what you’re bringing to someone else’s table. Do your family and friends know how you feel about them? And even if you’re not great with saying the words, are you doing a good job of making sure the people you care about know you care about them? Anyone can add this to their busy schedule. It takes less than a minute to make sure someone gets the message that we care.

3. Make sure your work schedule includes enough time for you to enjoy your life right now. Even if you’re putting in long hours in at work for all the right reasons, there’s no greater regret than knowing that we willingly let the important people and moments in our lives slip by without a second thought.

The truly wonderful thing about waking up each morning is that it’s another opportunity to do a little bit better today, than we did yesterday. Broaden your perspective when it comes to your time management strategies and you will have every reason to smile, every morning.

Alan Luoma: I am a Sales Coach with extensive experience in industrial sales, sales management, new

product development, sales and product training. I work with a great national sustainable packaging company and their exceptional distributors to increase sales. My success has been and is in utilizing the Pareto 80/20 principal in business and life. I have become an expert in seeking out and eliminating behaviors that prevent business people from being successful. I am a member of the Hartford Springfield Speakers Network, The National Speakers Association and New England Speakers Association. You can view my profile on LinkedIn, or contact me at Luoma@snet.net

Avoid Procrastination and Eat That Frog!

Between work and family life, many of us are overstressed with too many commitments, tasks and projects. We feel bad when we can’t get it all done in a certain timeframe. We say, “I didn’t have enough time.”

What if you could feel good everyday, without worrying about that task that constantly distracts you from gaining momentum? What if you could better manage your time and get those important things done before they become ugly and urgent. Wouldn’t it be nice to unload the weight of that stressful feeling?

You can, with this simple trick.

Every evening before you go to bed, write down the 3 things that need to get done tomorrow.  Rank them in order, with 1 being the most important, then 2 and 3. When you first begin this practice, you’ll find you are working on urgent and important tasks that need to be done now and throughout the current week. Once you move into week two and three, you’ll start noticing you are working on tasks that are not urgent, but are still very important. These tasks may not be due until a week or two from now, thus elevating that stressful feeling of constantly being under a deadline. When you reach this level of efficiency, you will start experiencing “flow”, and you will begin to master your time.

In his book, “Eat That Frog”, Brain Tracy talks about getting that one thing done first thing in the morning, so the rest of the day you feel alive and productive. The book has many tips and strategies to tackle procrastination, so we could all better manage our time and get the most important things done first. He states, “It has been said for many years that if the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long.”

What if you need to eat two frogs? Eat the ugliest one first.

As a Professional Organizer, Speaker, Author, Podcast Producer & Host, Rick Woods helps residents and businesses make room for clarity, by getting rid of the clutter that gets in their way.


Rick’s newly released book “Make Room for Clarity” is a step by step guide to getting rid of the clutter that gets in your way. Available on Amazon. Listen to Rick's free weekly iTunes & Stitcher podcast "Make Room For Clarity", which focuses on interviewing business & health experts by visiting www.makeroomforclarity.com.



Inquire about Rick's professional organizing business, "The Functional Organizer, LLC.", which focuses on decluttering, organizing, paper filing and time management by visiting www.tforganizer.com.