The key to successful time management lies in thinking and planning ahead. You must become conscious of yourself and decide what you want from your time.

You can manage your time only when you have a clear picture of what is going on within and around you. To assess the quality of your working time, it is helpful to keep a careful record for a certain amount of time, showing exactly how you have used your day. Over this period of time, write down everything you have done and how long it took. Next you can appraise your use of time and decide whether or not it was put to good use. Some pertinent questions you might ask yourself in appraising your use of time are suggested by the following

“time analysis” questions:

a. What items am I spending too much time on?

b. What items am I spending too little time on?

c. What items offer the most important opportunities for saving time?

d. What am I doing that does not need to be done at all?

e. How can I avoid overusing the time of others?

f. What are some other suggestions?