Personal Time Management: The Key to a More Rewarding Life

Most people view time management as little more than a list of rules that involves the scheduling of appointments, goal setting, planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing.

Taking a broader perspective, personal time management involves everything you do; with the ultimate desired outcome of creating a balanced life-style.

To put it another way, personal time management is about achieving rewarding results, not about being busy.

Following are the six specific areas of focus in personal time management:

* Physical: Developing a healthy body; this will mean less stress and fatigue.

* Intellectual: Making connections, seeing the worldviews and values behind ideas and behavior in the world around us.

* Social: Cultivating rewarding personal relationships and actively contributing to society.

* Career: Continuing education and finding or creating self-fulfilling work.

* Emotional: Learning to control your emotions rather than allowing your emotions, or those of the people around you, to control you.

* Spiritual: Intentional focus on one’s spiritual and interior life.

Thoroughly planning and creating a detailed "to do" list for each of the key areas is neither practical nor desirable; however where personal time management planning can serve a purpose is by determining which area in your life is not being giving enough attention. Each area combines to create the whole you, if you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

From the moment you integrate into your life personal time management skills, you open the door to new opportunities and to a greater sense of freedom born from the realization that you are, in the truest sense, creating your best life.