A fast life tempo in todays word is cause for stress for much people. Time management is one of the basic principles in reducing stress caused by the perceived "lack of time". People in retirement or people who recently lost their jobs might perceive their time as plentiful, but slowly frustrating.

Too much to do in too little time is can be as stressful as the feeling of helplessness when there is an abundance of unused time.

The truth is that we all have the same "amount" of time available, and it depends on our management to make the best out of it.

The basics of all time management techniques can be simplified to these three methods:

1. Deciding what is important and what isn't.
2. Making a schedule importing important things and discarding the unimportant ones.
3. Making (hard) choices.

When deciding what is important to you it is good to connect it to a schedule. What do you want to accomplish in a week? A month? A year? Congratulations, you just determined your short term, mid term and long term goals. They are best divided into small daily assignments that will accumulate to a goal.

To achieve them it is important do include the third technique, making choices. You will need to start saying no to things that distract you from reaching your goals, or putting it simpler - waste your time. Make sure you have some contingency time after every planned activity - problems do happen and if not you can always take the time do some smaller task or rest. Resting is important and should be included in your daily activity list!

Some friendly tips to help manage time include multitasking (planning a shopping list while cleaning), watching less TV (and spending less time on Facebook), throwing away useless things and generally decluttering.

The Basics of Time Planning Methods