Page 12 - timemanagement

Wellness@Boston Page 71

Don’t be tempted, though, to use a tiny diary – you’ll find there isn’t enough
space to write in everything you need to!

This isn’t the sort of diary in which you keep a record of what you have done
during the day, your thoughts, feelings and experiences, the sort of diary

writing taught in English at school. Instead, it’s a book in which you note down
appointments and tasks to be done on each day. It’s a planning tool which

enables you to manage your time and your activities better.

A good diary will have one page for each day of the week, and each page will
have two columns. One column, typically the left-hand column, will be marked

off in half hour or one hour intervals. In this column, you will note, in advance

and on the appropriate day, the time and nature of any appointment you have
made. These could, for instance, range from a dental appointment or an

arrangement to meet a friend for lunch to a job interview, a department

meeting or an appointment with a customer. Notice that you use the same
diary for both personal and business appointments. It’s important to keep your

diary with you at all times so that you can note down any arrangements you
have made. This will ensure that you don’t forget to diarise later, and also that

you don’t “double book”.

The right-hand column is also important. It is used to keep a “to do” list, a list
of all the things you need to do on any specific day. You may find that you put

items on this list days or even weeks in advance. For instance, if you need to

give a month’s notice of cancellation of a contract, you would write yourself a
reminder on the page for the day on which you must do this.

If there are specific tasks which you have to complete on specific days in each

month, in other words, regular or routine tasks, then you would fill these in for

the entire month at the beginning of the month. If, for instance, it is your
responsibility to clear your company’s post office book every Thursday, you

would fill this in for the entire month. If you have to pay your electricity account
on the last Thursday of each month, you would fill this in, and so on.

It’s important to set aside a time either at the beginning or at the end of each

day, to plan the day’s activities. This “date with your diary” should never be

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