Powerful Time Management Techniques

One of the most powerful time management techniques of all is single handling. This requires that you make a list, organize the list, set priorities, and then work single-mindedly on the most important task that you can possibly be doing at that moment. You must discipline yourself to overcome procrastination and focus all your time and attention on completing your most important task before you do anything else.

This is one of the hardest of all disciplines to learn, and it is the most important single discipline for business success.

All of life is a series of projects. Projects are, by definition, multitask jobs; they are large and important. As a result, these are the jobs on which you have a natural tendency to delay, defer and procrastinate. This is a tendency that you must overcome. Never give in to the temptation to clear up small things first. Select your most important task. Assemble everything you need to complete that task. Get started and then work single-mindedly until it\’s finished.

The incomplete action psychologists have determined that incomplete action, something you have started but not yet finished, is a major source of stress and fatigue, often leading to headaches, back pains, and other psychosomatic symptoms. There exists deep within each person, a compulsion for closure, a deep-down desire to finish tasks that we have begun. This sense of closure around a major task is essential for you to feel positive, effective, and on top of your work. Each time you complete a task, your brain releases a small amount of endorphins. This is called nature\’s happy drug. In other words, task completion gives you a sense of happiness. It makes you feel more positive and personable. It releases your energy and creativity. A tiny secretion of endorphins in your brain raises your self-esteem and increases your level of personal motivation.

Key. When you complete a small task, you get a small secretion of endorphin.

If you clear off your desk. Assemble and submit all your expenses for the week. Or complete a letter to a customer. You feel an immediate sense of pride and satisfaction.

The bigger the task, the bigger this endorphin rush. When you complete a major important task, something that only you can do and that can make a real difference to your company. Your brain releases a large dose of endorphins. You feel happy and exhilarated. Sometimes you feel like laughing out loud. Your energy levels surge. You feel more excited and enthusiastic about your life and work. Your self-esteem increases.

You feel like a winner. You feel powerful and effective. You feel on top of your world and capable of doing many other tasks.

The payoff for starting and completing major jobs is therefore tremendous. It not only can make a tremendous difference in your level of personal success, but it can also give you a tremendous feeling of happiness and personal satisfaction. This is the main reason you must work to develop the discipline of task completion until it becomes a habit. Once you develop this habit, your productivity will jump, and your success will be assured. The great truth is that no one is smarter than you, and no one is better than you.

People who are doing better than you in life at the current moment are not smarter or better. They have just figured out the right things to do in the right way, and they are doing them repeatedly and getting better results than you are for now, at least. All business skills are learnable. All sales skills are learnable. All moneymaking skills are learnable.

You may not be able to play the violin like Igor Stravinsky or dunk a basketball like Michael Jordan. Still, you can learn any business skill you need to learn to achieve any business result that you desire to achieve.

Now, it\’s hard to learn a new skill like time management. It takes time, attention, patience, and discipline. But once you\’ve learned the new skill, you can use it over and over again, and each time you use a new skill, you\’ll get better and better at it. As you get better and better in a particular skill area, whether it\’s marketing, sales, negotiating customer service, or producing quality products and services, it becomes easier and easier. You get more and better results in less time. What used to take you a month now takes you only a day. What he used to take you a year, you can now do in a month. Your income and profits go higher and higher. You accomplish more and more easier and easier with time management. You stomp on your mental accelerator down the road to wealth.