This post is the first in a series focusing on Time Management for Teens, Students, and High Schoolers.
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Timeless Rules of Time Management
Here are the ground rules of good time management that work for ANYONE at ANY age.
When we go on to focus on high school in particular, we’ll already be thinking about effective laws of time management. High school will just be the ENVIRONMENT that we’re applying those strategies to.
So, I want to start with my top 3 timeless tips of time management.
Each of us will have our own particular twist to getting things done, so it might seem hard to uncover any rules that fit EVERYONE.
But it IS possible - if those rules ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that we are all INDIVIDUALS.
That’s why each of my top three rules of time management is based around YOU and only you.
Here are the rules:
Rule #1: Know what you want to DO with your life.
Rule #2: Know yourself and your own personal productivity rhythms.
Rule #3: BALANCE is everything. Know what YOU need to stay balanced.
Time-Management Rule #1: Know Your Goals
Now, my number-one rule for time management is “Know what you want to DO with your life.”
One of the biggest questions we all face is what to work TOWARDS.
What goals and objectives and standards do we set, and how do we measure our progress towards them?
When done right, setting goals gets you excited and that excitement is what keeps you on the path through the hard parts.
Besides, just consider the alternative - which is having no goals in life!
You know that old, cliched saying about “If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, you’ll never get there?”
It’s definitely the truth.
In any journey, ESPECIALLY our longest journey - which is the journey of our whole lives - you must set a destination point or there’s simply no way to stay on course.
You won’t even HAVE a course!
Time-Management Rule #2: Know Yourself
My SECOND rule of time management is to know YOURSELF.
Most importantly for our purposes, you need to understand your own personal rhythms.
We all have strong and weak points during each day, each week, and each year - but there ARE usually recurring patterns to our highs and lows.
So, one key rule to time management at ANY age is to KNOW your current personal rhythms, which can change over the years as your personality changes and your lifestyle changes.
Generally it’s almost ALWAYS a good idea to position your need to get stuff DONE around your highest levels of energy during the day.
One great way to get started is to keep a super-easy and minimal daily journal to document your goals, productivity, and results at the end of each day.
Time-Management Rule #3: Balance Is Everything
And a bit more on rule number three: BALANCE is everything.
It’s true, balance is everything when it comes to working your hardest and believe it or not, some RELAXING is required for producing at your top potential.
Downtime, and sleep, food, and time for family and friends, is MANDATORY, not optional.
If you’re having trouble relaxing, just try considering it part of your JOB description to relax a little every day or you will fail later on when you burn out in the near future.
Be patient. Nothing great is every forced out in a day or even a week or a month.
Greatness takes YEARS of daily effort, and even GOOD results in anything that really matters generally take patience and long-term daily effort.
If it was EASY, everyone else would do it. Now THERE’S a cliche that’s 100% true.
What’s Next In Your Time Management?
So those are my three timeless rules of time management as a framework to our future conversations.
In the next post we’ll cover how to identify your OWN top one to five priorities in life so you can get the high-level clarity you need to take charge of your schedule and work on the things that really matter to you.
Before you go, head to the comments section and leave YOUR personal thoughts on rule number-one:
“Know what you want to DO with your life.”
Do YOU have an answer for this question yet?
Or, are you still COMPLETELY unsure… or somewhere in between?
Leave your answer in the comments, and I’ll see you in the next post!
Make this year your most productive year ever! Get the complete Time Management Online Course or order the book on Amazon today.