There’s being busy & there’s being surrounded by busywork. Busywork leads to disorganization. Disorganization will cost you time and cost the company money. If an organization is bled with endless unnecessary costs, it will suffer and begin to founder. This could impact your job in the long run. If you are running your own business, disorganization could be fatal for it.

Here are some basic steps to getting organized:

Set up a work schedule that you can actually use. You know when your best time of the day is. Plan your hardest work for this time. If you are a morning person, do your paperwork then. Save your low energy times for more mundane tasks.

Don’t make the schedule too rigid. The important thing is to set up a schedule of any kind, just to get into the habit of having some structure in your workday.

Make a list of things that you must do every day. This depends on your job. For instance if you have a boss, the boss may decide what you do each day. Nevertheless, there are things that must be done every day. Put these on your list. If you have a boss, simply put on the list “Follow boss’s orders.”

Do similar items together. For instance, if you do photocopying every day, get a file folder and put all documents to be photocopied in this folder. Pick a time when the photocopier is not likely to be in big demand and do it all at once.

Group your phone calls and emailing into single slots of time. If you have to be on your email frequently because people need information fast, set aside 5 minutes every half-hour and do it all at once. Stopping what you are doing and checking your email is a great time waster.

If you cannot get yourself motivated to use an online contact management program, keep all your contact information in one spot. Business cards, little sticky notes with phone numbers, index cards, pieces of papers… gather them all up and put them in a big envelope or a file folder. You can waste an hour a day looking for a phone number.

Do you constantly find yourself rummaging through your drawers & file cabinets to find an important document? Are you always losing important bills, receipts or memos under a mountain of unsorted, disorganized paperwork on your desk? Help yourself, and stop wasting time anymore.

One of the easiest and simplest things you can do to organize your files and documents is to group them in categories. Put them in color-coded folders or envelopes. If you follow this simple step of organizing your files and documents, you save yourself time and stress from having to guess where you have put important documents.

For example, pick and store all your professional documents such as employment contracts, business agreements, tax documents and memos in black folders. Any document that is related to your professional life, you should put in this folder. The next time you are searching for any of these documents, you only need to search within the black folders. Other types of documents will not distract you; thus, you will finish your search as fast and effectively as possible.

You can categorize personal documents further into medical documents, domestic documents and filial/legal documents. You can store all medical documents such as medical history of each family member, your and your children’s doctor/dental appointments, hospitalization documents, prescriptions and such in a blue folder. Domestic documents such as bank account statements, mortgages, loans, credit card bills, car and health insurance and utility bills can be in yellow folders. You can put legal documents such as birth certificates, marriage certificates, driver’s license and wills in green folders.

Mathematically speaking, by sorting, categorizing and color-coding your files and documents and doing four folder categories, you automatically save 3-quarters of the time that it would take you to find a document.

Do you often find yourself wondering where your time went? Twenty-4 hours just aren’t enough to get everything you need done, done. You are two days late with that budget report. You find out you do not have enough time to make your cookies for your daughter’s mini-party this afternoon. You keep forgetting to find that book your aunt has wanted to borrow in a long time (provided you can find the time to search for it).

You begin your day optimistic you will get a lot of things done but you kept getting interrupted — by your family, phone calls from friends or a co-worker who likes nothing but chat. Before you know it, unfinished tasks pile up and you begin to feel the pressure and stress brought about by not being able to fulfill commitments on time.

Beware of time culprits. They steal your precious time. Who are those culprits? The culprit can be a friend who constantly calls you every few hours to chat while you’re in the middle of finishing a report or trying to beat an important deadline. Culprits can be co-workers who constantly drop by your cubicle to discuss the latest office happenings or run an idea by you. Culprits can be family members who tend to drop in and out of your home office.

Sometimes, the solution can be as simple as learning to say, “I can’t talk to you right now,” or “I’m busy, but I will talk to you as soon as I’m done.” Learning how to deal with time culprits is a major step to mastering the art of organizing and managing your time.

However, external culprits may not be the problem. Sometimes it can be you. Do you keep putting off things? Do the words, “I’ll do it later,” often come out of your mouth? You may be able to manage how other people affect your time, but are you able to manage how your tendencies to procrastinate affect your time?

You can solve your time management and organization problems if you learn to identify your priorities and create a personal time plan. Oftentimes, putting your plan on paper will help you get started. Start managing your time today so you can have time to spend on the more pleasurable aspects of life.

One time management technique is to keep a time log. A time log helps you identify and pinpoint where your time goes or where you spend it.

In a time log, you divide the day up into sections and write down what you did in each segment of time. Ideally you would measure your time in ten or 15 minutes segments. This is a good technique but it takes time and if you are already time-challenged, chances are you will not continue keeping a time log. You would start out with the log but after the first hour, you will be distracted from it by the very problems you are trying to track.

Before starting your time log, take five minutes and look at the manifestations of your time problems. Do any of these apply to you?

• You are always overbooked.
• You feel that other people are in control of your time.
• You are always canceling or rebooking meetings.
• You are always taking work home to finish.

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you do need to track the source of the problem, but a time log may not be the answer. Your time is already out of control. When will you have time to actually stop and fill in the log? Instead try this exercise:

Right now, sit down with a pen and paper and answer these questions:

• Which is the most overdue of your tasks for today?
• Which is the most difficult of your tasks for today?
• Which is the easiest task you have on your agenda for today?

Do the easiest task first. You will feel some resistance, but do it. Just get it out of the way. Next, look at the most overdue and the most difficult task and see if you can break this task down into smaller pieces and have someone else help you with them. For the rest of the day, do not take on any more tasks or book any more meetings. Repeat these steps daily and you will notice a difference within a week.

To manage your time more efficiently, it is important that learn how to identify your goals and prioritize them. Creating a personal timeline helps in managing time. Know your short-term,mid-term and long-term goals and set your time for each. Doing so helps you spend your time wisely.

Each type of goals has specific characteristics. You need to learn to distinguish where your goals belong to as this can help you a great deal in managing your time. You can avoid doing things that do not necessarily contribute to achieving one of your goals.

Short-term goals are goals that you set and complete on a daily basis. You usually have many short-term goals running through your mind all at once. For example, one of your short-term goals is to pay your bills this week. Another short-term goal is to get gas for your car and fill it up on your way home from work. Short-term goals may take up much of your time, to the detriment of your mid-term and long-term goals. This is why it is important that you learn to manage your time correctly and try to complete as many short-term goals as possible.

Mid-term goals are goals that you intend to achieve at longer periods of time. For example, one of your mid-term goals is to go on a cruise 9 months from now. In planning for that mid-term goal, you try to arrange your schedule and time so that you will be able to go on that cruise. In short, mid-term goals are of significant importance and most of the time, your life changes depending on whether you achieve your mid-term goals or not. Completing all your short-term goals can sometimes bring you closer to mid-term goals. For example, one of your short-term goals for your mid-term goal of going on a cruise is to talk to your travel agent this week and find out what cruise packages are available.

Finally, long-term goals are the dreams that you have for your life. Long-term goals span years. For example, your long-term goal is to be able to be in management position five years from now. Another long-term goal is to own a yacht or your dream house. Whether or not you accomplish your long-term goals depends on you and how you manage you time. In order to get closer to achieving your long-term goals, you have to orient your time towards doing whatever is possible to achieve those goals.

Planning is probably the most important thing you can do in order to manage your time efficiently and effectively. When you plan your tasks and create a list of tasks, you become aware of the things you need to accomplish at any particular days and how you can most outstanding allocate your time. With a list of things to do, you have a clear view of each task and you can arrange them in the order that would help you maximize your time.

Here is a good practice: At the end of each day, create a list of things you need to do the next day. List the tasks according to their urgency. Tasks that are high priority need to go on top of your list while tasks that are low priority need to attendwards the bottom of your list.

Do further prioritizing on your high priority tasks. Among the tasks in your high priority list, which one is the most urgent? Arrange your priorities so you can execute them as fast as possible. This practice ensures that you will not miss any important tasks but at the same time, you will not neglect the less important ones.

However, if you tend to be more productive and have more energy towards the latter part of the day, reverse your list — put the low priorities on top and the high priorities on the bottom — and simply work through the small tasks at the beginning of the day. Don’t forget to add tasks you didn’t manage to complete during the previous day.

Creating a simple to-do list is a very fundamental strategy toward mastering time management. When you have a clear picture of your daily goals, you can face your tasks and tackle them. Without a to-do list or something concrete to help you manage your time, you would feel stressed and unable to function productively.

You sit down at your desk and look at the pile of folders and trade magazine that you have stacked up. They are full of information that you need to read or plan to read or want to read. The mail delivery cart stops and drops off more magazines and mail. You pile the magazines on top of the ones already there and put your mail into the inbox that is also teetering with a large stack of paper.

Be realistic. This is harsh but it has to be said. If you don’t have time to read these things now, when do you think you will have the time? On your getaway? Take all the magazines and periodicals that are more than a month old and throw them out. Don’t worry, if you desperately need information that is in these magazines, you can get another copy. The person in the next cubicle likely has a copy in his teetering pile of magazines that never get read either.

There is no need to stop this very minute and read the mail that just came in or look at the magazines but before the day is over, pick up the magazines that just came in and look at the table of contents. Do any of the topics relate to your work or your interests? No? Toss it too. Do it now. Take a look through your inbox. Is any of the material in it out of date, already done, or the deadline missed? Toss it. Can you delegate any of the rest of it? Your inbox stack should be significantly reduced.

It is difficult, but in the interest of workplace efficiency, you now have more desk space and you have set yourself free from useless information and the nagging feeling of unrest that the unread stack was giving you. Make it a habit to set aside 15 minutes a day to deal with paperwork that comes to your desk. Do not set things aside to read later and deal with later. Do it now.

Whether you are headed for a getaway, driving to an appointment or simply meeting a friend for an afternoon coffee, making good time is important. Planning is important for any trip, whether it’s leisure or business. Arriving on time is vital. It shows you value both your time and other people’s time.

When you are headed to your vacation destination, you want to make your trip enjoyable. And it starts with planning the activities that have to do with your vacation. You make sure your travel arrangements are finalized. You leave early so you can avoid traffic and be on time for your flights. You aquire and pack things you need for your trip to avoid needless stops. If you are traveling with your family, you want to avoid getting stuck in traffic with a car full of complaining kids and an irritated spouse. Your vacation is ruined before it even begins.

The same goes for when you have appointments. You make sure you arrive at your appointments on time, preferably at least 15 minutes before the scheduled appointment, by leaving early. You also account the time you will take trying to find parking space. If it is a business appointment, arriving early means you have time to freshen up and review your notes. In the corporate world, your punctuality reflects your professionalism.

If it is a personal appointment, like a dental or doctor appointment, arriving early means you have some idle time to do small tasks. You are on your way to mastering the art of time management if you are able to accomplish five-minute or ten-minute tasks while you wait for your turn at the dentist’s or doctor’s office.

The key to effective time management is planning. It can save you from wasting your time and experiencing unpleasant situations.

If you typically spend your days working and you feel that you don’t have time to devote to activities such as going to the gym, don’t feel like you are the only one. In today’s busy and demanding world, most people find it hard to fit many things in their already packed days. Time is a luxury only few have. For the rest of us, the most outstanding we can do is to find alternative ways to achieve what we can’t normally do.

Your health is important and you should never neglect your well being. However, your professional life can often take up much of your time. How do you make assured you get the job done and still be in good health? If you can’t show up at the gym to exercise, exercise while you work. You can do small exercises while you’re in front of your computer or before taking a shower. Do miner stretches and breathing exercises. Besides, if you are unable to devote at least 45 minutes of exercising each day, you can exercise in 15-minute chunks.

Learn to identify assured tasks and activities as opportunities for you to exercise. For example, you need to take some documents to the fifth floor. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. If you have an appointment in another building and it’s near your workplace, walk those 4 blocks. Leave early so you arrive early and have plenty of time to freshen up. The only limit here is your imagination and creativity.

So you see, even if you can’t fit going to the gym into your busy schedule, incorporating small exercises into your professional routine will save you time and still enable you to maintain your health.

Learning to manage time is 1 of the things many people find hard to do. More often than not, mismanagement of time is simply the result of not having a structured schedule.

The first step towards managing your time effectively and efficiently is to keep a personal schedule. The next step is to stick to a schedule and commit to it as firmly as possible. Doing this is a big leap toward mastering your time management skills.

Changing your schedule too frequently breaks good scheduling habits and creates a tendency to forget tasks. Avoid flipping or changing your schedule too often. When you get used to doing something, even if it was initially hard to do, it soon becomes part of your routine. It is no longer painful or difficult to do. For example, maintaining a regular sleep schedule will help you in managing your time. Avoid flipping your schedule or staying up too late on weekends. You are only disrupting your sleeping habit. Come Monday morning, you will be exhausted and most likely unable to function and do your tasks efficiently.

In addition, you would likely forget to go to to important tasks when you change your schedule too often. Unlike a long established schedule, your new schedule would require that you memorize what you have to do. For some people, this might not seem like a big deal. However, others would have a hard time adjusting and find it a good reason to be confused and miss doing some tasks. Avoid giving yourself this unnecessary trouble. Stick to your schedule and follow it as firmly as possible. By doing so, you can work on solving your existing problems rather than fixing new ones.

Sticking to a schedule can help you avoid mistakes and waste time. You also save yourself the hassle of unlearning good habits and learning bad ones.