Time management advice from a radio career coach

In Northern California, if you've ever tuned in to your local pubic radio station on Sunday mornings, you may have come across a program called Work with Marty Nemko. On the air in its 16th year, the bulk of the show is Marty answering phone-in questions about any job-related issue and offering guidance. Last Sunday he spoke about time management and offered up some great ideas that he personally uses. These are also covered succinctly in a new article.

Marty says that you need to be conscious about time, all the time, and find ways to trim waste, including things like declining meetings that don't need you, to hiring a personal assistant. You don't have to be rich these days to hire someone for a few hours a week, he argues, and the time saved picking up dry cleaning and running other meaningless errands is well-worth it. He may be on to something: Life outsourcing?

But the most valuable tip is less tactical and more strategic. He says that you need to embrace work. "If you recognize that the more you accomplish, the better you'll feel about yourself and your life, you'll get more done," he reasons. Also, write a personal mission statement which can help you prioritize your tasks. His is simply, "I want to be a beloved manager while allowing time for my kids and my hobby: acting."

For some, personal mission statements are hard to write because they are not sure what it is exactly that they want to do with their lives, or what they are currently doing is the point of it all. One great way to figure that out is to list the things you value, like your job, family, friends, politics, eco-responsibility, golf, and so on, and then figure out which ones are your governing values, those that define who you are. Then you are ready to write your mission statement and working backwards from there, you should be able to set yearly, monthly, and weekly personal and career goals. This can then followed further by prioritizing yuor daily tasks that help you reach your goals and align your life with your values.