By Keith Rosen
All Business (www.allbusiness.com)

Do you struggle to maintain control of your day -- and wish you could feel in charge of your career, and your life?

Integrate these time management tips into your self-management strategy to keep the chaos at bay, help you stay true to your priorities, get your work done, and still have time to enjoy your life.

1. Treat everything as an appointment. 

Bottom line: If it takes up time then consider it an appointment and schedule it. For example, getting ready in the morning, breakfast and your commute to work are just some of the activities that need to be part of your routine. Treating every activity as an appointment will allow you to plan better. It will also keep your honest about what you feel you can and cannot do so that you can perform each task with a conscious intention.

2. Plan for the unplanned. 

There are essentially three reasons why we find it so challenging to adhere to our schedule or complete our to-do list:

              a. Not being realistic with our timeline and as a result, have too many activities scheduled into our day.

              b. Not engaging in right activities that support our goals or objectives.

              c. Not planning for the unplanned. Also known as, “externalities,” these things that we don't necessarily plan for often go unnoticed and fly under our radar screen when we're attempting to map out our week. They have tendency to eat up our days. These externalities can also take on the form of errands or household chores, the kids' carpool, time on the phone, traffic, a doctor’s appointment, a project or proposal that you’re now responsible for which has a rapidly approaching deadline, a conversation with a co-worker, television, web surfing, meetings, emails, solitaire, etc. Many of these things come along and blindside us because they’re outside of our direct line of vision. Then we wonder why we’re often unable to finish everything that’s on our plate for the day.

Now, since we don’t have a crystal ball to inform us about the little things that threaten to consume part of our day, we acknowledge that they will hit us, and work them into our time-management strategy.

Tip from the coach: Distractions are events that you are not planning for. Plan for them.

3. Establish a timeline for each task. 

Time blocking is the art of creating blocks of designated time for specific activities or tasks throughout the day that are aligned with the realistic number of hours you have each day. However, before you can effectively block you time, you must prioritize your tasks and activities to be included in your routine and establish timelines for task. So, if you have a nine-hour workday, which includes one hour of planned externalities, (see number 2, "Plan for the unplanned") you realistically have eight hours to use for activities that you can create designated blocks of time for and then position within your routine. You may encounter certain sporadic, yet consistent, activities that take up a portion of your day such as personal errands, phone calls, e-mails, prospecting, managing employees, writing proposals, training, meetings, or other work-related tasks. Consider allocating blocks of time for each activity during certain intervals throughout your day to handle them. For example, instead of being interrupted by incoming calls or e-mails throughout the day, try blocking out specific portions of your day to make and return calls or respond to e-mails. 

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