This Blog Entry will also appear on also appears on The Savvy Woman, an on-line magazine for Women.   

Truths about Time Management:

1. Keep A Calendar: You must keep a calendar, a written or digital record of where you need to be and when, and you must keep it with you.  All the time.
2. Keep Only One Calendar:  You are only one person, no matter how amazing you are and how many different roles you play.  The roles of parent, child, sibling, boss, employee, volunteer or domestic hero are all played by just You.  So track your movements in just one place.
3. Your role of Manager of Others is also important, so track the movements of loved ones and even co-workers, if their actions impact you, in that one place, too. 
4. Make your Calendar More Complete with Contact Information.  Your calendar, written or digital, should contain a contact list of all pertinent phone numbers.  As a matter of maintenance, input every phone number for friend, family, client and contractor as soon as you get it.
5. Make Your Calendar A Planner, and Keep A Task List with it as well.  You take care of many things, personally and professionally, so incorporating a rolling Task or To-Do List allows you to note what needs done without attaching it to a calendar date or time.
6. Use that One Planner as a Management and Decision Making Tool.  You are given 168 hours every week to spend in your endeavors. A visual record, written or digital, helps You then decide how to distribute your time and talents.
7. You have to trust that the One Planner is correct, and it is only as good as what you put into it.  All information must go into the Planner. Do not assume you will remember something, because maybe you won’t!  As soon as you get information about upcoming projects or events, put them into your Planner.  If you do this regularly, it will become a good habit and you will trust your One Planner to help you make decisions.  If you don’t maintain the good habit, you will never quite trust your Planner as a tool and then it is useless.
8. Create Scheduling Guidelines:  No one schedules anything without checking with the Keeper of the Planer, You.  This pause gives you a chance to say “No” gracefully, too.
9. Use your Planner to cultivate new positive habits:  I signed up for a 5K and cleared one hour 4 days a week to exercise.  By putting it in the Planner, I made it happen.
10. Use your Planner to Help People Help You:  I use Outlook on my laptop computer as my time management tool.  I input all information into it, and sync it with my I-Phone a couple of times a day.  Because the info is on both my phone and laptop, my spouse can check the laptop in my absence, to make decisions, too.