One of the simple facts of life is that there isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that you probably want to do. While we focus on speed reading here as a time management technique, the simple fact is that there is no one-stop tool for time management. It is a very simple, dedicated approach which will allow you to truly maximize the amount of hours in a day. So while we don’t think that there is one specific thing to focus on, investing in some time manager software would do you significant good.
Here are a few of our favorites:
An online stopwatch might not be the most advanced time management tool on the market, but we love the simplicity of it. How many times during the day do you find yourself saying that you’re only going to spend an hour on a project, and then look up to see that your whole day has passed you by? For us, it’s much more often than we’d care to admit, and especially for you telecommuting, work-from-home people, who have all of your distractions close at hand at all times, this can be a great way to keep your thirty minute lunch break down to a scant thirty minutes.
PC Tattletale may have been designed to keep children away from the more adult areas of the internet, but we love it as a time saving tool because it allows you to input your own list of banned sites. If you’re a Twitter addict, or a Facebook fanatic, and you just can’t seem to muster the self-discipline to stay away, then this might be perfect for you, and will reclaim all kinds of hours from your day. It’s also great for keeping employees off of those sites as well.
The Systemizer is a software tool which allows you to create mind maps. This is great for when you read something, and you know you’re going to come back to it again, because what you do is create a simple document (often with less than 20% of the words) which is based on what you learned when you read it the first time. This helps you remember what was there, and often jogs your memory enough to help you stop yourself from having to go back and read again. This is fantastic time manager software for college students, particularly while studying for finals, or for organizing notes, but it shouldn’t be neglected in the business world either.
TaDaList is a simple web app that works with your iPhones and Androids as well, and it’s function is to work as a to-do list that you can keep updating all of the time. While some, myself included, will certainly prefer the pen-and-paper variety, this is no doubt a great way to involve your children in performing their chores and recording their homework, or a great way for you to break down your day’s work into smaller, more manageable tasks, and start mowing through them.
Organization is a key to time management, and for that reason, I can’t recommend enough that you don’t overclutter your life with things that take more time to manage than they save. Tools are great so long as they continue to serve a purpose in your life. Time manager software is all over the place, but sometimes, it really pays to not overutilize them when simple solutions work best.