That’s it! You’ve had it! If another person asks you to do one more thing you’ll scream. Your desk is a mess and there just don’t seem to be enough hours in a day. The days fly by, it’s 5 o’clock before you know it and you haven’t done a third of the items on your “to-do” list.

If you are a church secretary and any of these things sound familiar, just take a deep breath and relax. Here are 4 quick ways to get it all under control and keep your sanity:

1. Put your daily routine on autopilot.

Everyday tasks like writing letters, going through mail or returning phone calls and emails should be as easy as breathing. Schedule times during the day when you will do each task. Some people feel lost if they are not answering the phone every time it rings or constantly checking email.

“Achieve more by doing less” said Dr Wayne Dyer. It sounds nonsensical at first but there is a powerful truth behind this statement and it is a key time management and success strategy whether successful people use it consciously or not.

There are several ways to achieving more by doing less and becoming super-productive. Let’s take a brief look at three ways this goal can be achieved.

1. Do things in a calm, relaxed manner

Have you ever noticed how frenetic some people are in doing their activities? When you work in a calm, relaxed manner you achieve more in less time.

I once watched former 400m athlete, Roger Black, take part in a celebrity chef competition. His kitchen looked liked a disaster zone. There were ingredients scattered everywhere. He was preparing food on every surface imaginable. Sweat was pouring from his brow. He looked tense and stressed and barely finished in the allotted time.

Can we have agreement that:

• A minute has 60 seconds?
• An hour has 60 minutes?
• A day has 24 hours?

Then how can you run out of time given that time is a constant? What is really happening is that you are having to do more with the same amount of time. Now the solution should not be managing time, but rather better management of yourself or what some call is self-leadership.

Many time management training programs focus on giving you specific time management strategies, but fail to address self-leadership strategies necessary for personal and professional success. Both skill sets must be connected to avoid repeating time management courses that many individuals take at least two if not more times.

So how can you do more with the same? First, take the time to put your purpose together using a written purpose statement. Answer the question why are you here? Then identify what gifts do you bring to the table of life?

Time management is a complete waste of effort! Or is it? How often have you heard the phrase, “I don’t know where the time went?”

We get absorbed by our daily lives and do jobs that are urgent, pleasant jobs or easy, which means we don’t get to the necessary jobs.

Then we scratch our heads and see all the time has gone…

I was coaching a client in Australia and I realised she worked hard spending what seemed like 25 hours a day 8 days a week on what she did. So I suggested she use my Time Checker to find out where time was spent and plan whether to change it.

The Time Checker

Let me explain how the Time Checker was created.

After my first ever year working I was running a number of my own projects in parallel. I felt they were all getting out of control and wondered if I was making the most of my working day.

Being a perfectionist is a blessing and a curse. When quality and accuracy are at a premium you can be counted on to deliver, it’s just a matter of when you will deliver. You can never live up to your own extremely high standards and you drive others nuts with your meticulous concern over every little detail. A happy medium between your own standards for perfection and the level of perfection required for the task at hand will help you to enjoy better time management.

A great way to get better time management for a project is to map out the entire project before starting. Start with a blank piece of paper putting the project in the center and then identify all the tasks, obstacles, and outputs needed. You’ll love this part because you get to think of every detail from the onset.

Scheduling is best practiced when it is done regularly; for instance, at the beginning of the week or month. When you schedule your activities you may want to follow some steps which would serve as helpful pointers to help you get organized:

Begin your planner by specifying the schedule and the amount of time you will allot for the task. Of course this will vary with the kind of and requirements for the task and with the objectives and goals you have set.

After that, you need to identify the necessary actions and steps that you think you will need for the successful completion of the task. This enumeration of actions and steps will serve as an outlined guide for you so that when you are already working on the task you will not literally get lost and confused on what you will do next. In addition, this outline of steps and actions will help you work conveniently.