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If you’ve got career goals that you want to achieve, but your working life feels overwhelmingly busy, it’s a good idea to take a step back and evaluate the situation. Rather than having way too many things to fit in, the issue may be the way you’re approaching them. Here are some great time management strategies that will help you to regain control.

Break Goals Down into Smaller Ones

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If you feel immediately defeated every time you think about your to-do list for the week ahead, try to break those big goals down into smaller, more manageable sections that you can tackle one at a time. If you focus more of your energy on working through these miniature goals, you’ll stand a much better chance of accomplishing your larger, overarching ones. Take some time to write down your smaller targets for the week ahead, and what you need to do to achieve each little milestone. Try to foresee any issues that will take things off track or push you behind schedule. Set out plans for getting around these issues, and organise people who can support you if needed.

Use A Timetable

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Setting yourself a timetable of the day can be very helpful, as it allows you to concentrate more on individual tasks, rather than having them all pile on at once. With time, you’ll also make it much easier to know what kind of tasks you can tackle, and how much time you have to leave yourself to meet certain deadlines. Trying to juggle the responsibilities of your day job, while keeping up with a demanding qualification like a healthcare administration bachelors, often requires strict time management. Just make sure you’re honest about how you spend your time. If you know you can’t resist a session on social media or reading the headlines, be sure to factor this in.

Step Back and Re-evaluate

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You may know from experience that setting yourself goals isn’t the only factor that goes into accomplishing things. Even after structuring your goals like this, if you feel that you’re still procrastinating over a certain task, it’s a good idea to step back and ask yourself why. Do you need some kind of extra support to remain on-task? Perhaps the task itself simply doesn’t feel all that important to you, or it feels too far away from the end-game rewards you’re actually gunning for. Perhaps one of your miniature tasks isn’t actually necessary, and there’s some other, better solution which you should be engaging in.

Appreciate your Own Achievements

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I saved the best tip until last: give yourself a break once in a while! Rather than dwelling on the things you haven’t achieved in the week for one reason or another, make a point of recognising what you have done. No matter how much you feel you’ve fallen short, there’s a fair chance that you’ve checked a lot of other things off in the process, and brought yourself at least a little bit closer to achieving your goal.