Using Technology for Effective Time Management

If you own a computer, you most likely already have all the time management tools you will need at your fingertips; there’s no need to buy expensive software to help you manage your time wisely.

Manage the Phone

By far, one of the best technological advances that can help you manage your time effectively is the technology on  your phone, whether it is a wireless phone or a landline.  Between voicemail, caller id, call waiting, call waiting caller id, and call forwarding, you should not be wasting precious work time stuck on a phone call that you’d rather not be on in the first place.  Use your phone’s features to take only the calls you want to take.  Just be sure to return calls to friends or family in a timely manner.

Bookmark Websites

Although it’s fairly easy and time efficient to use an Internet search engine to search for websites and information, you can save a lot of time by bookmarking the ones you visit often.  Take advantage of the technology on your computer to not only bookmark websites you visit often or plan to visit again, but organize these sites into folders.  If you do this at the time you are adding them to your favorites, you will be able to find them again much sooner than if you simply add them to your favorites.  If you keep all of your bookmarked websites in one generic favorite’s folder, you’ll have to scan through dozens or hundreds to find the one you’re looking for.

Organize Email

Home organization experts advise people to open their mail over the trashcan and immediately file the mail in its appropriate folder, whether that is the trashcan, a to do folder, or a folder set aside when it’s time to pay the bills.  In the same way, if you will organize your email at the time you open it, you will save a lot of time and aggravation by not having to look for a specific message when you are ready to deal with it later.  If you have regular clients that send you email, make folders for each client and immediately send the email to the corresponding folder.  Make sure you’re using an email application that weeds out the Spam so you don’t have to weed through it at all.  In addition, always add important email addresses to your address book so that important correspondence doesn’t end up in the Spam folder.

Most people don’t need to buy new and expensive gadgets to use effective time management strategies and techniques.  Remember, most of the skills that have to do with effective and wise time management can be found in simple organization, self-discipline, and commitment.