Time Management Skill Checklist

For Setting And Achieving Your Goals

Welcome to the Time Management Skill page. This web site is about setting and achieving personal goals. To see more goals articles please go to our achieve your personal goals or setting goals pages.

This page provides a time management skill checklist to help you achieve your goals. By skills I mean habits you develop to deal effectively with certain key areas:

Goal planning
Focus
Measuring progress
Taking corrective action
Celebrating progress

GOAL PLANNING
Gary Ryan Blair says that planning saves 10 to 1 in execution. In other words, one hour's planning will save you ten hours later.

The first step and the most important step in planning is to choose your goal carefully. Most people fail to achieve most of the goals they set. A big reason is that they choose goals they don't particularly want to achieve, or don't believe they can achieve. You must have a burning desire to achieve your goal.

The second vital step is to define your goal in very specific terms. You need to form a clear picture in your mind and also to write down your goal. You have an automatic success mechanism within you, but you have to give it clear directions.

After this, there are further goal planning steps to take. For example you should assess the resources you will need, including time, knowledge and building a self image that matches your goal.

FOCUS
Focus is a key time mangement skill - if you don't focus you are very unlikely to succeed. Reaching your goals must take centre stage in your life - if you really want to achieve them. Gary Ryan Blair says your goals have to be like "Moby Dick in a gold fish bowl".

Focus means you need to keep on visualizing your goal, and taking regular action to reach it. How do you focus? Well, if you've ever been worried about anything you already know how. You just keep on thinking about it, and keep on taking action.

It's not just about focusing on your goal. It's about the 80/20 Principle - focusing on the key activities that will help you achieve your goal in the most direct and quickest way.

MEASURING PROGRESS
In the planning phase, you should set a time deadline for achieving your goal, and also for reaching your mini-goals along the way. The third time management skill needed is to set up particular review dates when you can measure progress against your plan.

Measuring your progress on a regular basis is an excellent way to keep focused on the specifics of your goal. Without this regular review it's easy to forget about the exact target you had in mind when you set the goal.

TAKING CORRECTIVE ACTION
Measuring progess also gives you a trigger to take corrective action - the fourth time management skill - if you are not making adequate progress towards your goal. Again, your time spent on planning will help you here. Which part of your plan hasn't worked out? What do you need to change?

This is where you need to stand back from the detail and take a bird's eye view. It's like setting off on a car journey and then assessing whether you're heading in the right direction. Consult your map and figure out whether you need to readjust.

CELEBRATING PROGRESS
On the other hand, maybe you'll find that you have progressed well towards your goal. It's very important to congratulate yourself in whatever way you find helpful. But, however you do it, take at least a few moments to soak up the good feelings. This is a time management skill which many of us lack. We'll give ourselves a hard time when we get behind, but fail to recognise our achievements.

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