You don’t have to be a genius to manage time; rather, if you’re a genius, you probably don’t know how to manage your time because you tend to be eccentric, you keep haphazard and unconventional schedules, and you have a one-track mind that is so focused on your passion that you find it hard to multi-task efficiently. So if you’re looking to manage time effectively, thank your lucky stars that you’re not a genius. Rather, it is good old-fashioned planning that does the trick when you want to cajole an extra hour out of the day or squeeze a little more work into the few hours that you do have. So here goes, a few time management tips that are bound to boost your productivity, at the office or elsewhere:

• Effective preparation is worth half the journey: My mom barely finished high school, yet she’s one of the most effective managers of time I’ve seen. She runs her household like clockwork; she handles the cooking, cleaning, laundry, running errands, and nurturing us kids and our pampered dad with an ease that would stump even the most capable of CEOs. The reason she’s able to hold her own when there’s chaos around her is that she prepares in advance. She’s ready with the day’s list of chores, the menu to cook, and the things she needs to get done, the previous night. She lays the groundwork for these tasks much before they’re meant to be done. So if it’s cooking a meal, she has all the ingredients cut and ready by the countertop before she sets the pan on the stove. This makes her task simpler and easier to complete. The most valuable lesson I learned from my mom is that effective preparation means your job is already half done.
• Panic only makes things worse: No matter how good your plans are, the uncertain nature of life ensures that things could go wrong at any stage. Some hitches are temporary and can be resolved with backup plans, but others may be trickier and can send you into panic mode especially when you have a deadline looming overhead. You must condition yourself to avoid panic because it stops you from thinking clearly and boosts your chances of costly mistakes. Some people get accustomed to crisis situations over a period of time while others have to explicitly learn to condition and tone down their nervousness and panic. If you want to get things done on time, stop panicking and start thinking.
• Steady plodding is worth much more than flashes of brilliance: In any work environment, there are people who work steadily yet slowly, and others who rely on flashes of immense productivity for short periods of time to get their work done. While the latter option seems more glamorous and interesting, it gets you into trouble because you tend to become a little too self-confident. So you put things off indefinitely and lose track of what you’re supposed to do. When you’re looking to achieve productivity in the long term, it’s slow and steady that ultimately wins the race. Rather, it’s your persistence in your efforts to manage time effectively and improve your productivity by using every minute at your disposal that pays off every single time.

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: anna.miller009@gmail.com