The key to success in today’s competitive world is time management. If your time management is good you can certainly conquer the world. It’s rightly said, ‘Well planned is half done’.

In today’s competitive world it is very important for individuals to manage their time effectively. The people who manage to reach the higher levels in organization are always good time planners.

The first step towards time management is to prepare a calendar. You can prepare a weekly or monthly calendar. List down daily activities in the calendar and the timelines within which you expect to complete the work. Now, once you have the activities and timelines in place you need to keep track of your progress vis a vis the timelines set. If there’s any variance you need to understand why you have deviated from the schedule.

Find out where you are wasting your time and try to cut down your unproductive activities.  Normally we tend to invest too much time on unproductive activties and for prodcutive activties we are left with very little time. Its very important to prioritize your work.

Try to delegate less important tasks to your subordinates so that you can concentrate on more important things. Try to follow ABC approach.

Also, try to see if you are spending too much time on a particular task. Mostly, the accountants and management reporting folks work a lot on excel. They need to find out ways to reduce the manual effort and try to automate the reports wherever they can. This holds good for all other jobs as well. Try to see if you can minimize your manual effort and save some time. For example-If there’s a document which needs to be prepared every month you can create a template for it and make necessary changes to it every month.

Remember, at your work place to be ahead of others you will be expected to do things differently and effectively. If you can manage your work effectively you can concentrate on other initiatives and show the management that you are capable of managing not only your work but other initiatives as well.