My oldest son is a sophomore in college and recently joined the TRIO program. This program is designed to help him get through college successfully. It's a federally funded program that helps students in four areas which include academic, financial, career, and personal/social. They sent him an article related to study tips, so he sent it to me to read. I read it and was amazed at the tips and how they not only are geared toward studying, but also to life in general.
Here is what I learned from that article.
In everyday life we can become overwhelmed when we have too many things on our plate. What we don't think is that it's possible to get everything done on time and in an efficient way. Of course, the only way that will happen is if we learn how to manage our time and organize our day. Here are several tips that will help you to manage and organize your day.
1. Plan
You may plan every day, but if you don't give yourself enough time to get everything done, you're setting yourself up to fail. If you're not sure how long it will take to complete a task, then the best thing to do is give yourself more than what you think it will take. That way if you complete it in less time, you'll have more time for other things.
2. Time
Working your business at the same time every day will help you to develop a habit. Daily routines help in developing a habit, but you won't develop it if you don't work your business the same way every day. It typically takes 1-2 weeks to develop a habit, so if you force yourself to work your business at the same time every day the habit will be formed.
3. Free Time
While working your business really hard is the only way you'll reach success, free time is also important. Depending on how much free time you have and how you want your business to go, you may be able to do "me time" daily. It's important to utilize your free time to your business advantage as well. If you find you have multiple hours a day where you have nothing to do, try spending a quarter of that time marketing your business or learning something new to help you grow. You'll find your free time may go away, but the success you'll have will be priceless.
4. Breaks
While you may think the only way you'll reach business success is to work every waking minute of the day, but if you do you may become burnt out if you don't take breaks. When you work a job for someone else, you are entitled to breaks during the day; you need to do the same for your business. Take a 15 minute break after a couple hours and don't do any work during that time. Take a lunch or dinner break and don't work during that time. This will give you a chance to not think about your business and you'll find you will be less stressed.
While these four tips are important and should be done daily, it's also important to know it is OK to deviate from your plan on occasion. It happens and there is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes it's needed in order to deal with a personal situation or to get away from everything and clear your head. You may find when this happens you go back to your business with better intensions than you had before.
