Time Management & Goal Setting for 2025!
January 6, 2025
“A new opportunity to take massive action in the New Year.”
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If you are like most entrepreneurs, the early morning is no stranger to you. You are likely extremely familiar with the 5:00 am wake-up call (or earlier) but also recognize the need to feel fresh and focused for your business day. The solution might just be refreshing your time management and goal setting skills and what better time to accomplish this than at the beginning of a New Year.
Ours is a busy society where everyone is moving rapidly from project to project. As a result, many people may feel that there simply are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.
Quite often people delay certain tasks until the late hours of the night as a way to catch up. But that can be detrimental to health. The National Institute of Health warns that lack of adequate sleep can affect mood, adversely affect relationships, increase anxiety, and possibly contribute to depression. Inadequate sleep is also associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease.
Rather than tapping into precious hours of shut-eye, men and women can learn how to manage their time better so they complete more tasks during the day, leaving more time to relax and sleep at night. Effective time management begins with these strategies.
2. Develop goals. Goals do not have to be far-off ideas for the future. They can be easily reached today. Simple goals such as, “I want to remove all nonessential paperwork from my desk” can be tackled quickly and without much effort. Goals give a person something to work toward and are important ways to steer you in the right direction. Without goals, you may wander aimlessly. Accomplishing goals of all shapes and sizes gives a feeling of accomplishment.
3. Avoid distractions. Distractions can pull attention away from important tasks at hand. Distractions can be phone calls, text alerts, personal issues, people in the room, and many other things. Figure out how you work best and minimize distractions so that you can fully focus on your priorities.
4. Stop multitasking. Unfortunately, multitasking is not the key to getting more things done. In fact, it could actually be hurting performance. Research conducted at Stanford University discovered that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. You simply cannot put full effort into multiple things at once – and something will be short-changed if you try.
5. Write things down. Keeping information floating around your mind is ineffective and can lead to stress. Put things down on paper or make digital notes to keep track of what needs to get done. Set your targets and break each task down to manageable pieces. Physically cross items off your list as they are completed.
Time management is a skill that can be learned with practice and focusing on elements of success. Below are a few links that might also help you with your goal setting for 2025.
Backward goal setting
BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal
Warren Buffett’s “2-list” strategy
The OGSM model: Objective, goals, strategies, and measures
SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goals
