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The Importance of Personal Time Management

Personal time management can be even more difficult for the work at home mom than it is for the mother who works outside the home simply because while the one who works outside her home has a specific schedule she must follow, it can be more difficult for the work at home mom to separate her work life from her personal life.

Although it is difficult to separate the two, the successful work at home mom knows she must employ work and personal time management skills in order to keep things running smoothly. As important as it is to keep to a work schedule even while working at home, it is just as important to schedule personal time.

Personal time and personal time management means different things to different people. While it may mean a two hour bath and a pedicure to one, it could mean cleaning out the fridge to another. If your schedule is largely divided between your personal life and your professional life, then your personal life is going to mean everything from painting your nails to getting supper on the table.

One of the keys to finding time for everything is to make a schedule and stick to it as much as possible much like guarding your budget in the grocery store by making a list and sticking to it. If a two hour bath and time at the spa once a week or once a month is important to you, then it should be scheduled as a priority.

That's another key to personal time management: deciding what your priorities are and then working to keep them straight. If you want to have a family night once a week, you have to schedule that and make it as important as anything else on your schedule. You also have to be willing to say no to other opportunities that may arise regarding that block of time.

We've all heard it said and most of us have said it ourselves about any given subject. "I would like to but I just don't have time." That is probably one of the biggest untruths we will ever tell ourselves or others because the truth is we do have time for the things we really want to do. Personal time management involves prioritizing. We have to consciously decide what we want to do enough to make the time for and to heck with the rest!

Personal time management involves making decisions. Sure, there are plenty of things to be scheduled that we don't particularly want to do but when given the alternative such as pay the electric bill or sit in the darkness; we realize that we want to pay the electric bill.

It can be hard for women to schedule personal time because we think we have to do everything. It's easier for some of us to do the dishes rather than take a couple of hours off and pamper ourselves because we're supposed to do the dishes and we feel guilty if we indulge ourselves. However, and this is where it gets fun, once we have learned effective personal time management and follow through, we will learn that we don't have to feel guilty for personal indulgences because everything else is getting done too. That's why personal time management is so important and so valuable. Everybody wins!

As far as the other kind of personal time management, the kind that involves taking care of your family, cooking the meals or cleaning the house, it's the same principle. Choose one day a week for cleaning, bill paying and those pesky things that have to be done weekly. Learn to cook multiple meals at once to keep your daily time in the kitchen at a minimum while still feeding your family delicious, home-cooked meals. In other words, prioritize and strategize and there will be plenty of time for that two hour bath.