A great tip to manage your time has to start with measuring.

Yep, measuring.

All things can be more easily improved, results in sports, weight loss, money management, or whatever you are trying to improve, by knowing the numbers on your current activities. Time is no different.

You cannot really improve anything by any means other than by luck if you do not know the specifics of where you are now and where you want to be. That means measuring.

Some way, somehow, you have to assess and assign measures to things. Time, cost, how much you really hate thinking about something on a scale of 1-10… Something that helps you know where you are now and where you plan to find yourself later.

If you want to manage your time more efficiently and truly increase your productivity, you need to measure time in a couple of ways.

First off, you need to know how much time you have, how much time you need, and how much time it actually takes you to complete various undertakings. (I’m trying to avoid saying “tasks” since that sounds so evil these days 🙂

Measure the time available for your productive day. How many hours and minutes do you have? Really. It certainly isn’t the 8 hours you are on the clock, or however many hours you are sitting in front of your computer.

Write these things down, exactly:

how much total time do you have
how much time is available for each task
how much time does it take you currently to complete them

Here’s where most people fail miserably at setting time goals. They don’t know exactly how much time it takes them and they often ’round up’.

Be realistic, but be as precise as you can.

Think of it this way, measuring everything in one hour or half hour blocks is not going to give you time to complete many tasks within your allotted time, is it?

If something that takes 6 minutes is given 10 minutes in your schedule, then you’ve just lost 4 minutes. Think about how many more “6 minute” things you can get done in an hour than “10 minute” things.

So, measure your time, both the time you have and the time it takes. The best way to get a handle on managing your time is to know those numbers, and then to work to improve them.