They didn't teach time management in school.  During my years in a military academy prep school, I was forced to learn out of necessity; from reveille to taps, the day was structured and you only had x amount of time to do everything, from brushing your teeth to homework.  I did learn how to focus and get things done, but I still didn't really have a time management process.

It was after I was out in the real world I began hearing about the importance of time management; so, I began wondering how successful people did it - after all, we all have the same number of hours to work with.

Here are a couple of time management tips that helped me.  Hope they help you, too.

Worried about managing time?  Here are some ‘timeless’ time-management tips that still work!

Tip #1 came from Jack Nicklaus, the dominant golfer on the PGA Tour when I started out in sales.  He ended his career with 18 wins and 19 second-places  in major championships – that’s 37 times being either 1^st or 2^nd in majors – and he did it all playing a limited schedule while building a successful design firm and his own brand in golf club manufacturing!   Even today, at 70, he has more than 50 golf courses under construction around the globe with over 80% of his business overseas!

I read a Jack Nicklaus interview on time management back in 1979.  He said that in his early career, he was always working and the results weren’t that great because he was always ‘burnt-out’.   He decided to change his approach by blocking recreation and family into his calendar first, then golf, then business, making sure that nothing was neglected and everything was ‘in balance’.   That way, he said, he was never burnt-out and he could approach every segment of his life ‘recharged’ with enthusiasm!  When he was with family, he wasn’t thinking about work or golf.  When he was on the course, he could concentrate on that.

Tip #2 came from another interview I read, this one with Roger Staubach who had been a star quarterback for Navy, served his country,  became a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback and, five years before retiring, began a career in commercial real estate development.  By the time he retired from the Dallas Cowboys, his company had become one of the most successful real estate developers in Texas.  In his interview, he said he liked to ‘block’ his time.  All activity was assigned a letter code:  `A’ – activities that produced income.  ‘B’ – activities that contributed to ‘A’.  ‘C’ – activities that he called `white collar maintenance’ - stuff you have to do that doesn’t contribute to revenue.  ‘D’ was driving, and ‘X’ was everything else.

Roger Staubach said the first thing he’d do is get his calendar out - no CRMs in those days - and use a marker to draw boxes around each hour of the day, every day of the week, for the entire month.  Then, he’d put codes in the boxes.  Certain hours would always be A, B, C, etc.   Then activities within each code would be prioritized and inserted.

I’ve been using a combination of those two approaches as my system ever since.  Try it!  It will work for you, too.

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