Stressed out, feeling overloaded... here is a simple tip on how to manage time

Many people complain, I'm not able to cope up with work and life. Work is piling up and personal things are just hanging, how to manage? If you have noticed, some people do lot of activities and they manage the things very well. But the question is how? From my experience, when I used to run into this kind of situation, what I used to do was, every day before going to bed, think what needs to be done tomorrow and keep it in writing. Also, at work, keep list of things to do on my cube's whiteboard along with the priority. So, the most imp item goes on the top of list and once it is done, remove from the list. This simple technique used to help me a lot in many ways including no need for staying late at work! Also another good thing to follow at work is instead of spending time chatting with collegues, taking unecessary long coffee breaks, try to finish the work and head for home! I know it is not very easy to follow but what my experience says, if we practice it is not that tough.

Let me explain bit more by giving example. I know this not the best one, but what I can think of right now. Once, I had gone to a team building training. We were asked to build 9 inch structure in a given time limit, where a person should be able to stand for 20 secs minimum, using only papers. This was a team activity and we started off with some plan, that ended in a argument and without any proper plan, we made something. Then when we were suppose to demo, the person tried to balance on that but that structure could not withstand and it was a failure. There was one team, where they were able to successfully build that structure and demo was a success. So, what we learnt is, if you plan properly before executing, it will be a success and also, lot of time will be saved plus you will have peace of mind while executing! Now, how this relates to managing time? The successful team had proper plan and timeline. They strictly followed it and at same time, they tasted the victory also! So, if you manage time very well what you get is success and peace of mind.