Time management is not so much discipline as it is recognizing what you should or should not let interfere with accomplishing your desired goals. There are many things that can get in the way of having a good plan for managing your time, just as there are excellent ideas to help with management. Presented below are six time management don’ts along with their corresponding do in order to be better at managing time.

1. Don’t rely on stacks of paper to remind you what to do.
2. Do put every task you need to do all on a single list.
3. Don’t rely on your memory for appointments.
4. Do put all appointments on your calendar.
5. Don’t ignore important projects because they seem too big for you to do.
6. Do break bigger projects into many smaller manageable tasks that you need to get done.
7. Don’t believe your work has to be perfect to be good enough.
8. Do go for quality in order to eliminate the possibility of future rework for you.
9. Don’t do the easy stuff first just because you can do it quickly.
10. Do work on your higher priority tasks before working on lower priorities.
11. Don’t be late to meetings you attend or start meetings you hold late.
12. Do use an agenda for your meetings to keep it on track and end on time.

Consider the six time management things to do when any of the six don’ts crop up. Eliminating or avoiding the things that can get in the way of having a good plan for managing time will make it easier to do the good options that help you to become better at time management. Remember that time management is a little discipline mixed with lots of recognition of those items that might personally interfere with accomplishing your goals.