Time is a precious, nonrenewable resource. That's why you should

value every moment, hour and day that you have. And just as a

well-run business should carefully develop a strategy for

spending money, an effective business person should carefully

develop a plan for spending time.

To help you use your time as effectively as possible, here are

some time management strategies you can implement to enhance your

efficiency and productivity:

Develop A Time Strategy

The first step in effective time management is not to develop a

schedule, but instead to develop a time strategy. The time

strategy should be based on a short list of time priorities.

Start by identifying the No. 1 way you can most increase profits

by use of your time. Then move onto the No 2 way, the No. 3 way,

etc. This short list of time priorities forms the foundation for

your time planning for every week of the year.

Next, you should focus your efforts. Focus is crucial for

effective time management. And the fewer priorities you focus on

at once, the more productive you will be.

Once you've established your major time priorities for the year,

you should allocate them by week or by month. Like it or not, a

lot of our time each week is going to be eaten up by nonstrategic

items that we have no control over.

Therefore, it is important to limit the number of strategic time

goals we have for each week. So even if you have 10 strategic

time goals for the year, you may want to focus on no more than

one or two of them in any given week.

Set Aside Uninterrupted Time

Every week you should make up a detailed time plan, which you

modify each day as needed. Except in times of crisis, try to make

sure day-to-day issues don't push your strategic time priorities

off your schedule.

Generally, your major strategic time priorities will involve

activities like planning, thinking, and developing ideas. More so

than day-to-day issues, these activities require big blocks of

uninterrupted time.

Constant interruptions can kill any hope of effective time

management. One way to avoid them is to make it clear that when

your door is closed you are not to be disturbed. Another is to

have regular meetings, such as every week, with the people that

you interact with the most and insist on saving non-pressing

issues for these meetings.

Avoid Time Traps

To get the most from your time, be careful to avoid these common

time traps:

• Spending more time in the offices where the most congenial

people are, as opposed to where the most important issues are.

• Wasting too much time getting daily updates on routine

activities, instead of waiting for a more meaningful weekly

summary.

• Jumping too eagerly into the routine, more straightforward

work and putting off the more complex and difficult work.

• Not starting the most important work first thing in the

morning.

• Failing to make up a schedule for each day.

• Scheduling each day so tightly that it is impossible to stay

on track.