CRASH course in time management:

If you want to make maximum use of your time, try the CRASH course in time management:

Consider

Release

Arrange

Schedule

Hold

Briefly, here's what the CRASH course entails.

Consider what it is you really want to accomplish in life. Determine what is really important and what is absolutely necessary.

Release everything that is trivial, unnecessary or relatively unimportant. You could do this by eliminating them or delegating them.

Arrange the remaining activities in order of priority based on their impact on your personal and organizational goals.

Schedule time for these important activities in your planner. Make appointments with yourself to actually work on them. The most important ones get scheduled earliest in your planner.

Hold to that schedule. Don't be so quick to give up the time to others. Have as much respect for your own time as you have for others'. Say 'no' more often.

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The CRASH course is a way to get the important things done at the expense of the unimportant. It recognizes that we can't do everything, nor be all things to all people. There's always too much to be done in the limited time we have available. It forces us to consider what our goals are, and to realize that to accomplish these goals we must commit ourselves to spend time on them -- sometimes at the expense of things we assumed were necessary. It recognizes that a "not to do" list is as important as a "to do" list. It involves getting off mailing lists, committees and activities that do nothing to further our personal or organizational goals. In a way, it's a zero-based time management program where we get back to the basics, and shake free of all the superfluous activities we got involved in over the years.

Many of us are "activity packrats". The CRASH program recognizes this and asks us to peel away the "trivial many" and the time-consuming habits of a lifetime, leaving the meaningful activities listed in order of importance. There is always time for the things that are important in life; but we have to make room for them. Scheduling tasks and activities directly into our planner, just as we would schedule an appointment with a doctor, business associate or friend, will provide the time to actually do them. Listing what we want to do is not good enough. A "to do" list is simply a wish list; a scheduled block of time is a commitment.

The most difficult part of the CRASH program is actually holding to those commitments. A lifetime of allowing other peoples' requests to take precedence over our own wants and needs is not an easy habit to break. We must realize that our time is as valuable as the next person's. It's our time. And we are the ones responsible for its use.

If you sometimes feel like you are spinning your wheels and not accomplishing anything of real significance, take the CRASH course in time management. Consider. Release. Arrange. Schedule. Hold.