Managing Your Time Successfully

“Too little time” is a common excuse for not exercising or engaging in other healthy behaviors. Learning to manage your time successfully is crucial if you are to maintain a wellness lifestyle. The first step is to examine how you are currently spending your time.

1. Identify what activities you were engaged in each of your waking hours (6am, 7am, 8am, etc)

2. Next, list each type of activity and the total time you engaged in it on a given day (for example, sleeping, 7 hours; eating, 1.5 hours; studying, 3 hours; working, 3 hours; and so on).

3. Take a close look at your list of activities. Successful time management is based on prioritization. Assign a priority to each of your activities according to how important it is to you: essential (A), somewhat important (B), or not important (C).

4. Based on these priority rankings, make changes in your schedule by adding and subtracting hours from different categories of activities; enter a duration goal for each activity. Add your new activities to the list, and assign a priority and duration goal to each.