Taming the Pace of Our Time Management

By Rashun Jones

Many of us start our day by cramming everything we can on our to do list. Then we run around at a frantic pace trying to get everything done on our list. Does this sound familiar to you?

Spending your day running at a frantic pace can hurt you. A frantic pace can raise your blood pressure, cause you to eat unhealthy foods and make you feel overwhelmed or just stressed out.
Feeling stressed can cause you to experience physical pain like headaches or you may even feel irritable and lash out at your friends and family. If you want to turn this around and feel healthier. Start today with these tips to make time work for you.

1. Treat time like money. You don't throw money away, why would you give away your time? Learn how to prioritize. Tell yourself I won't add another thing to my schedule. "If I want to do this, I'll have to give up something else." Don't spend time you don't have.
2. Sit down and prioritize. I believe one of the most important aspects of time management is knowing what is important to you. This will help you eliminate areas from your life that you are spending time on that you shouldn't be. Ask yourself, Is this how I want to spend my time?" If the answer is no, reprioritize.
Set time priorities that will move you closer to your values, your goals and things you enjoy in life.
3. Learn to say "NO" Practice saying this word with a smile on your face. This re-enforces the fact that you do have choices-exercise your power to choose.
You choose when and where you spend your time and resources.
4. Schedule time for joy. List the things that you find enjoyful...getting to the gym, writing in your journal or window shopping. When you cancel an appointment or an appointment gets re-scheduled, instead of filling that time with more work, how about a compromise? Spend half of the time working and the other half doing a joyful activity.
5. Slow down. At first you may feel uncomfortable adjusting to the slower pace of living. That's because you may actually be addicted to the speed of your current life. You need time to withdraw from the frantic, mindless frenzy. Force yourself to do something slowly. I spend time chopping up vegetables. I enjoy every slow minute of vegetable chopping, storing them and eating them later as a nutritional snack. Sit down and take time to enjoy the moment.

Sometimes we allow our selves to become out of balance because we like it when people say, "Boy, She sure is dynamite. Look how busy she is." Many people say I'm just a poor time manager as if it's ingrained in their DNA. The truth of the matter is anyone can be a good time manager if they choose to be.