Time is an intriguing and abstract concept - and its management is more of a 'performing art' rather than anything else. You do get rewarded if you manage time well - but like the 'walk-on-the-rope' act, you got to keep on doing it if you want to continually benefit from it. Out of all the solutions available till date that promise you to make a super-productive person, you have to figure out what suits you best. I am going to review some of the things that worked for me and some that did not and all from the perspective of an individual. You will find what works for an lone non-jargon fellow rather than huge management concepts applicable to big projects.
The 80-20 rule applies to many situations in life and time management is one of the most crucial of them. 80% of the stuff can be done in 20% of the time and the rest 20% needs 80% of your time. This just boils down to - only one out of every five tasks that you do is the time taking one. If you can focus on that one (out of five) task, you will improve your efficiency and get more time in hand (which you may fill with newer tasks!). Here I have found that if I categorize a task as that of category 'A', I assume it is urgent as well as important. For category 'B', it is urgent, but not important, so I need to do it on a priority basis. The 'C' tasks are the one that are important but not urgent, so that I can do them before the week ends but cannot ignore them. The 'D' tasks are the one that should go to the trashbin. I don't use a notebook to categorize this way (though I do write down some of the tasks which I may forget - say getting Nail paint for wife!) but inside my mind, I just remember the A and B jobs to be dealt with faster.
I have never been successful with the ideas of using yellow post-its for two basic reasons - one that i wasted more time writing and pasting (my handwriting make the notes puzzles in disguise!) and the fact that they are visible to my cubicle mates (I am not comfortable). It never was successful for me and like most of my friends, even I believe that such post-its are just to impress your manager that you are good at work (maybe the work of pasting notes!?).
While dealing with people, I am friendly with everyone but I have a priority inside my brain about how much of my resources (time, attention, blah blah) are to be with the other person. Anyways, if you meet more people in the day, figure out a method to be nice to folks and still keep your priorities. It is importance to prioritize - you are not unfair to them this way, in fact you do more justice to them by being more efficient for the reason you are dealing with them.
Some people use POSEC (Prioritize by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing and Contributing). Don't you really think this is too much to apply to personal time management? I feel so. It is more of a management jargon that will make you feel better about managing your time (whether or not you really end up saving time!). If you look at this principle with respect to simpler tasks of life, it all boils down to the simpler steps I mentioned earlier. (Don't bring too much management jargon while dealing with personal stuff, say for creating time for your kids! Leave that to office stunts! - try applying similar stuff dealt with traditional project management techniques - you are human, not a project!)
The last to be mentioned, but which is really very important, is that - its not that big a deal, just remain relaxed. You waste more time worrying about saving time than if you were a bit more relaxed and planned things well. Believe that it is a simple job, if you go one step at a time and give yourself a bit of time to really catch-up on what you plan for this. As the old saying goes, 'plan out your work and work out your plan'!
