Time Management: For Financial Advisors

If you could save time from your daily activities, life would be a much better place to live in. there are hundreds of books offering suggestions on how to manage time, but there’s no time to think about time. Even if a few people do digest some parts of the book which they think they can follow in their life, it goes so for just about a few days. This is mainly because learning a new technique requires time – something which people seldom have! The books fail to disclose to the readers that the technique of time management as suggested by them may not be applicable for everybody in the society to follow. Most of them have to adopt a combination of various strategies to suit their purpose, which is highly dependant on what task is to be performed and the general habits of the performer. So having a general awareness of how the system works is very important.

Some important systems for managing time 

1. To-Do lists: This is a very common way of managing time. You can take a blank sheet of paper and chalk out what tasks you need to perform, in order. Most of the times, a big task can be split into smaller ones and completed individually. This creates satisfaction if the person succeeds in doing the task within the scheduled time. However, this should not be followed if your work involves tasks that are not constant. 

2. Assign a priority: By order in the last point we didn’t merely mean order of performance, but order of priority as well. Important tasks should be done first, followed by the less important ones. But if you have different projects requiring equal amount of attention, then this won’t be of much help. 

3. Never postpone: Procrastinating has not helped anyone in the world. If there’s a task that you need to complete now, then do so. Don’t unnecessarily postpone things for the future. For those who are involved in a lot of paperwork, they follow the practice of completing one full paper before proceeding to the next, which makes the task complete. The good aspect here is that a routine is set to make you disciplined in your work and not to avoid things. But again, for a nature of work, all requiring equal attention, this method is not suitable to be followed. 

4. Accomplish fearful tasks first: If there is something in your task that you fear the most, try finishing it at the very outset. This will give you confidence to move on with the rest. This helps in overcoming fear, but if the power of fear is too strong on an individual, the entire schedule can be affected.