One of the essential aspects of time management is scheduling. In spite of increased automation and other high-speed devices, we still seem to be having so much to do and so little time left. But effective people know how to manage their time and achieve their goals with minimum of stress. The ideal way to make the most of your time is to schedule your activities and maintain them.

In order to draw up a realistic Schedule for all your activities, you have to first be clear about your immediate or short, medium and long-term goals. The goals would cover all areas of life career, social, family, physical, religious or any other areas. Once these are clearly outlined, you will have to accord these goals priorities in terms of short, medium and long. This calls for a lot of realistic understanding of the existing situation and your personal commitment to achieve the same.

Based on the goals, you can then schedule your activity. Your broader goals should be assigned a clear time frame and you have to then plan your action that will take you closer to achieving them. The most common feature found in many of our daily activities is that we spent 80% of our time on non-essentials, while only 20% is accorded to the most vital jobs. This results in non-achievement of our goals and a sense of frustration and stress at our inability to attain the same.

You have to form To Do Lists for your daily activity and set priorities for them. It is essential you assess the nature of job and assign those work that can be delegated or outsourced to others and concentrate on the vital areas that require your personal action. Successful leaders always know when and how to delegate or outsource jobs, while leaving them to concentrate on the most critical areas of action.

Another very important element of Scheduling is blocking appropriate time for any contingencies. With practice you will learn how much to set aside for these. There are always some unexpected elements that will demand more of your time than originally envisaged. Of course you will not be able to guess when interruptions will occur, but by giving space in your schedule, you will give yourself the flexibility to react effectively to issues as they arise, even as you maintain your overall time schedule.

Thus an effective Scheduling would be one that is based on your personal goals short, medium and long and To Do Lists- daily, weekly, monthly - based on priorities. When both these elements are clearly covered, you will have a well-set Schedule for you to follow.

Needless to say, there are great varieties of diaries, calendars, organizers, PDA or a software package like MS Outlook or GoalPro 6 and the likes. However, a simple Mind Maps will do the job of all these put together. That is because Mind Maps provide a wide scope for inputting your goals, To Do List, Time Schedules and much more all in one comprehensive Mind Map. You could then create separate Mind Maps for Goals, To Do List, Time Schedule Lists, etc.

Apart from providing you a complete picture, such Mind Maps provide a sense of motivation and purpose behind your actions. These Mind Maps thus serve as a record and mark your progress. They help in providing connectivity amongst your varied goals and actions and pave way for applying creative solutions and approaches for achieving them. It is the simplicity and vividness of Mind Maps that makes them such a useful device for plotting your life and actions. You will learn that being successful often means working smarter than just harder. Using Mind Map technique not only takes you nearer to your goal but faster and easier. Try it to know its effectiveness.