Helpful Time Management Tip

First, ask yourself...
Do you ever find yourself doing way too many things during the day that are not ultimately important?

One of the main reasons we sometimes feel that even though we worked hard for 10 hours at the office, we "really didn't get anything done" is because we react too quickly to the tasks presented to us, instead of taking the necessary time to evaluate their importance. We live in a fast-paced world, so we are wired to want to attend to everything right away. But when we don't take the necessary time to evaluate the importance of the task at hand, what often happens is the 'not so important' things take up most of our time.

Before just jumping into action the next time you get an e-mail telling you about a task or "emergency" that needs your attention, take 30 seconds and think about what this task REALLY is. Is there anyone else who can handle it? Can it be taken care of over lunch instead of right now? Is it something that might simply go away on its own, if given time?

If we can get into the habit of properly evaluating the tasks presented to us before actually acting on them, we will find that a good number of them are not as "code red" as we initially assumed. And when we can then postpone them, delegate them, or simply decide not to do them, we will free up much more of our time, and decrease our stress levels dramatically!