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Basic Time Management Skills

How can I use time to always accomplish tasks?

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Sean McArdle

Sean McArdle is a master motivator and speaker in the areas of sales, negotiation, strategic planning and personal development. His distinctions about what makes for a successful career and life come directly from his own experiences. His stories will take you on a personal journey from living under a bridge at 25 to negotiating some of the largest printing contracts in the publishing industry at 28. Since 1992, Sean McArdle has written numerous books, tapes and software programs in the areas of sales, strategic planning and personal development.

Sean McArdle's tapes series, LifeMapping: A Thinking Tool for Living Your Life On Purpose, was televised nationally in a 30-minute documercial with host and ESPN Sports Analyst, Joe Theismann. McArdle believes that the key to his success and yours is "the ability to design the architecture of a day that will bring you what you want for a lifetime."

A faculty member of the American Management Association, Sean McArdle delivers more than one hundred keynotes and seminars each year. He has shared the podium with many of today's leading celebrities, thinkers, and achievers. He is a consultant to some of America's leading businesses, including: Lucent Technologies, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, Re/Max Properties, and the National Association of Printers and Lithographers.

Sean McArdle is the Chairman and founder of a nationally recognized training company providing seminars and consulting to some of America's leading corporations and the U.S. Federal Government. When he is not speaking or teaching others to teach his material, he focuses on new ways to help individuals take advantage of accelerated learning skills and techniques.

How can I use time to always accomplish tasks?

In this video, management guru Sean Mcardle explains some simple ways that you can improve how you manage your time.

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Host:How can I use time to always accomplish tasks?

Sean McArdle: Using time to always accomplish task is not as easy as it sounds, but it all starts with one thing called a to-do list. Years ago, some very organized person came up with the idea that if they were to write down all the things they needed to do and then cross them off as they got them done, well, they would be more effective. Not only do I agree with that, but I have noted in the study of people who are very, very successful that every one of them operates from a to-do list.

Some people have what we call a rolling list, if they do not get it to today, they move it till tomorrow, but one of the most important things about getting all of your tasks accomplished is to know to what they are and you can not do that in your head, most people can not. So, I always suggest that we make a to-do list of what is important and then we mark each by its level of importance.

So for instance, if you had 30 things on your to-do list and that might be everything from cleaning your closet to applying for a new job, you would go through and mark them as an A, a B or a C. (A) would be something very important to me, very high on my value lists. (B) would be something I have to get it done and I need to get it done before all the C s on my list, but if I do not get it done today, the world does not end. A (C) is something that you would like to do, like to get around to, it might be dropping of a parachute to have no heels put on, but the fact is that overtime, it is not really all that important. So, basically, you have to start by putting down what is important on to-do list and then valuing each on the ABC method. Then I like to take all the A s and put them in one place, all the B s in another and all the C s in the third place on the piece of paper and then I number them in terms of importance.

That way, at any given time when the chance to do say may be a C and get it out of the ways available, you look at what the C s are and you pick the one that is the most important, get it done, cross it off. That is how we get to task accomplishment. That is how we build a successful life overtime.