Are you looking for some time management tips that are easy to apply and help you simplify your life? Achieving better time management is not really as hard as it seems. Discover tactical information that can help you increase your skill. Then, all you simply need to do is just follow through with your desires to better manage your time and use the information you learn. If you do this you will see things will begin to gradually fall into place.

I'm still new to learning about time management. As I mentioned on my Time Management profile, one of the time management resources I enjoy using & learning from is Dani Johnson's audios. The permalink to the audio file that I will be providing notes from tonight can be found at - Time Management: A Priceless commodity for Your Business and Life. In order to access and listen to the audio file on time management you will need to set up a free account with Dani Johnson.com, login to the members area, and then visit the (above) permalink.

The first thing you need to do in order to help you be successful in managing your time is: you must establish what your priorities are. Take a look at your current life and situations...

What does your day comprise of? What do you do in a week? Do you work? Are you running a business? Do you exercise? Do you participate in activities? Are you a mother consumed by your children's daily activities? Do you like to watch certain TV shows? Do you like to use Web 2.0 or are you into social media? Do you attend certain online or offline events? Do you constantly like to party?

Ask yourself:

What are currently the most important things/areas in my life?

Note: Get out a pen and paper and make sure you jot down your answers.

Right now, for me personally, God, my family, and work/business are my top priorities. Unfortunately, when I take a look at what I do in a day, I've realized that my daily activities do not reflect my priorities in that order. In fact, honestly, lately my relationship with my family has taken the backseat as a priority and it is also currently one of the most draining aspects of my life - the other is work/business.

So, like myself, you have to ask yourself:

Do I like the way I'm living my life right now?

My guess is, the answer is NO, since you're looking up time management on the net! :-) But at least you've taken the steps to help you achieve more efficient time management by desiring to learn more. Almost every time you will have major stress on your life it is because you are not managing or communicating your time management effectively. The next step is to just apply what you learn.

So, you must first establish - what are your priorities? So, how do you determine what your current priorities are?

What do you spend all day doing? What do you spend all day thinking about?

Did you get out a pen and paper and jot down what's currently the most important things in your life? If not, do it NOW.

Take a look at your notes - are your priorities any of the following?:

• work / business - are you thinking about work or business while you are spending time with family or friends
• family / children - do your children come first? does your life and schedule revolve around theirs?
• appearance / working out - are you constantly worrying about how you look and looking for ways to improve your physical appearance?
• activities / hobbies - are you engulfed in social media or do you spend countless hours catching up on your favorite sports events or television shows?
• drugs / alcohol - do you spend most of your day thinking about or participating in drugs or alcohol?

Whatever you spend most of your day doing or thinking about, those things are your current priorities. If you don't like your life the way it currently is it's most likely a result of poor time management and not managing your priorities properly.

While work or family are two great priorities to have, they don't have to run your lives. You don't want any one of these priorities (i.e. work, family, appearance, etc) to consume your life. If any one of them does (or a few of them), in order to achieve more balance, you need to learn how to better manage your time and priorities so that each area of your life gets the recognition it deserves.

An example of the best way to live your life/prioritize is (in order):

1. God/Spiritual life. Starting your day right with the spirit can help your day go so much smoother. Don't start your day with worry, stress, and anxiety. Put God first and spend some time grounding your spirit.
2. Your Spouse (if you have one). Your spouse should be your second priority. A fun way to do this is set up a date night so that life (work, kids, etc.) don't take precedence over your relationship with your spouse. All of you spouses want to know you come first to your significant other, right?
3. Children (if you have them). You should be setting some one-on-one time aside for you and your children. And if your children are everything in your life you are setting both yourselves and your children up for failure. You may be raising a self-centered brat. Don't get me wrong, I believe children need a lot more focus in today's society, but there's right and wrong ways of doing it.
   
4. Work/Business. This area is one where many have to re-order their priorities. Many of us allow our business or work to take priority over our families, spouses, etc. And yes, we do need to all work, but work should have it's place in your list of priorities.
5. Everything else. There are many things that can fall into the everything else category such as extracurricular activities (aka fun), working on your physical appearance/working out (unless its your profession), basically things you would do in your free time. Once the above 4 priorities have been met there's always going to be room to do everything else - you things you enjoy doing.

After you establish what your priorities are, the second tip you must do to help you achieve better time management skills is: you must determine what your goals are.

"Nothing becomes dynamic until it becomes specific." - Dani Johnson

A great time management tip is that you must establish what you want from your life and WHY. Some of you have no idea what your plans for your future are, you just live your life day by day. And sometimes your daily activities have nothing to do with what your priorities are. Many times you will find that you begin something in your life and an obstacle may come along ... and because you don't have a road map or goals to help keep you focused on your path, you give up and quit. However, if you have a set of goals established and written down that you are working towards, when challenges come, you will then have a set of goals in mind to help you stay focused and persevere through tough times.

You have to have goals - you have to establish a WHY ... why are you doing what you're doing?

Note: Take some time out right now and write down what some of your goals are (probably on that same piece of paper that you wrote down your priorities on).

So, for example, if you are participating in the HubChallenge, one of your goals should be to create 30/100 Hubs in 30 days. You may want to write 5 Hubs on, say, time management - so also write that down as one of your goals. You may want to take a vacation in a few months, and if that's the case, write that down as well. Briefly take a few minutes right now to brainstorm what some of your goals are (for life, work, etc) and write them down. For now don't worry about time limitations on your goals - write down as many as you can think of both long-term and short-term.

"Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; cant's into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don't just think it - ink it!" - Author Unknown

Remember, it's important to have goals set so that you know your WHY. Also, if your goals are established, when opposition comes, goals will help you know the opposition or challenges are there to test you.

Because this hub is geared more towards time management tips, I'm not going to get into the specifics of goal setting here. I will do a follow up with Time Management & How to Set Goals.

Now that you've established what your goals and priorities are, the final time management tip to get you on your way is: just get started, no excuses allowed!

I know for me, personally, the biggest issue I have with time management is actually applying the information I learn and putting it to action. Why? Because, there is a part of me that naturally rebels against rules and structure! While I'm not like most wild/crazy people whose character the "issue" of rebelling against rules usually fits, I've always had a problem with routines or schedules - they're boring and too expected. I don't like to feel programmed. I mean, most of us like a little bit of spontaneity in our lives, don't you?

For me, better time management is more of a mental challenge than anything else. I can't even tell you how many times I've written down my priorities and goals, created a schedule ... and didn't stick to it. And while I've managed to still accomplish many of my goals, my life around me still continued to be total chaos! Nothing ever got accomplished in a timely manner.

So out of all the time management tips, I would say the best on is - Just do it! Don't procrastinate, don't wait for the right circumstances - they will never come, nothing will ever be perfect or work out as planned until you take the steps necessary to accomplish what you want.

Again, as I mentined above, I am still new to learning about time management. I am not an expert on the topin of time management at all. I am applying things as I learn them, and you should too. Don't try to do it all at once - take one day at a time. Slowly but surely as you put your plans to action things will begin to improve. To learn more about time management and time management tips that may help you, check out Dani Johnson and start on your path to better time management today!