Are you someone who is frequently running late for work or meetings? Or, are you known for always turning up late to friend’s parties? If so, not only are you increasing your chances of missing out on something important but you’re also in danger of damaging your health as studies have shown that one of the biggest causes of stress is lateness.
To help you shed your reputation of always been late (and possibly improve your health) here are some top tips on how to better manage your time:
Learn how to manage your time
If lateness is becoming a serious problem and it’s impacting on your job, a time management course by personal professional development training firm, such as Impact Factory, can seriously help you to take back control of your time. The course shows you how to look into what is causing you to be late, gives advice on how to set priorities and discusses a number of tools and techniques you can put in place to ensure you continue to manage your time effectively.
Say, no and mean it
As much as you hate being late, it may continually happen if you’re taking on too many projects or responsibilities. This may be down to your reluctance or inability to say ‘No’. It’s important that you learn to prioritise tasks and, or ‘bin’ projects that are not going to achieve results. Plus, if you do say ‘No’ but find that later on you are easily talked into doing it, it may be helpful to explain your reason for declining the offer or invite.
Let go
Letting go and delegating can be particularly tricky, if you have been heavily involved in building up a project from scratch or if you are the owner of a business and you find it hard to let go. But, taking on too many responsibilities could be the root cause of your lateness. If you have the right talent in place, your colleagues or staff will have the skills and experience needed to do the job properly. Your job is to learn to have trust in them and pass on tasks, so you are free to focus on other things like increasing sales, for example.
Get better sleep
Some people are able to function on five hours of sleep, while others need around eight to nine hours each night. What’s more important is the quality of the sleep you get and not the amount. If you find that you are laid in bed tossing and turning, or if you struggle to fall off to sleep, look into ways in which you can improve your sleep quality. It could be that you need a new mattress or that there is too much light coming into the room.
Eliminate distractions
To stop a task taking longer than it should, you should eliminate any source of distraction so you can solely focus on what needs doing. This could be working from somewhere quiet so you’re not tempted to get into a conversation with a colleague. Or, if you find you’re distracted by incoming emails, you can shut down all your browsers, turn off your phone or turn off notifications. If you’re tempted to check out what is being posted on social media or to play a game on your phone, you need a blocking app, like Offtime.
Hopefully, by incorporating some of these tips into your day, you’ll get a firm grasp on your time management, so you’ll never be late for important meetings or dinner-dates again.
