By Doug and Polly White, for Entrepreneur.com:
Every entrepreneur we know struggles with time management. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to take care of everything. We fight the same battles to manage our time and tasks.
If you have a to-do list, you are ahead of the pack. However, there are ways to make your list and time management plans more effective. Here are five tips that will be help you to get a few more minutes in your schedule:
1. Prioritize the list.
Each day, look at your list and mark those items that are the top priority. Consider the urgency and the importance of each task. Obviously, things that are both urgent and important will rise to the top of the list. Items that are neither urgent nor important can wait.
Place items that are urgent, but not important lower on your list. Evaluate just how “squeaky” that wheel is before spending your precious time on it. Give more time to those tasks that are important, but less urgent. These items, when completed, add more value.
Use some type of visual reference so your priorities are clear. You might rewrite your list in order of priority. Polly highlights her top items in yellow and then again in pink when they are complete. Doug numbers items in order of priority.
Once you have established priorities, follow them. Don’t get sucked into the trap of focusing those things you can finish quickly, so that you can put lots of checks on your list.
2. Estimate how long each item on your list will take to complete.
It's common to underestimate how long tasks take. You may fail to include time for interruptions, travel, review or getting steps approved. What about "pondering" time? We all need time to think about our tasks before moving forward. Developing or creating takes time. When you fail to include time for these parts of the process, you are doomed to underestimate how long your tasks will take.
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