Why do you need a plan anyway?

To put it bluntly, not having a plan when trying to solve anything is planning to fail.

You see, I understand its completely possible to get lucky at times and find success, but I promise you that the success that youre experiencing will be short lived and if you plan to expand your success your journey will be filled with surprises and met with great unpredictable circumstances.

I mean, think of it this way, if luck was the best and most effective way to build on your foundation for success, wouldnt gambling at the casinos in Atlantic city be the most popular and most profitable profession.

Obviously, this is the same with time management since aimlessly working throughout your day without a solid plan to follow your results will purely be depending on how lucky you are that particular day. This is no way to work if productivity and results is your goal, which is why having a time management plan is critical.

So what is a time management plan?

Basically, all it is, is a plan that will help you know what you have to do to get to where you want to go in the shortest amount of time.

An interesting fact is that all through history, the most successful people have made great use of time management plans and in most cases would not even attempt to work without one handy.

For most people, it has been their only way to be productive or achieve any results.

By just writing out your tasks on paper or typing it on a computer you've increased your chances of becoming productive, since you are aware of what you need to accomplish and at the same time it adds an element of importance to your task being that you actually wrote it down.

If you feel confident in your typing skills and understanding of technology then I suggest you leverage the power of technology using the software available on the internet.

A time management software's main value is in allowing you to easily and quickly format your own specific plan designed to satisfy every one of your needs and tracks your progress along the way.

Most people often say that it's a lot more effective, reliable, and convenient when it comes to completing tasks and getting actual results.

The free software that the overwhelming majority of successful people and even normal people, like you and I, apply with their time management plan are:

1.) iCal

This is a personal calendar software created by Apple for Mac users and has all the functions you would need to keep yourself on task and focused. It even comes with an alarm that you can program to let you know when you have to start a new task or project. Its really cool.

Honestly, if you have a Mac, this software beats out most of the paid time management software on the market and has all you really need to optimize your time, all for free.

2.) Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a free online calendar that lets you keep track of your own events and share your calendars with others. It's the ideal tool for managing personal and professional schedules. It is both simple to use and very powerful.

3.) Evernote:

Evernote is a highly useful free software designed for notetaking and archiving any and all important information, pictures, records, etc. You can use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then you can find them all later on, on any computer, phone or device you use. All for free. Since this tool allows me to capture and save what I want it helps me remember everything (as their motto claims) from pictures, documents, names of important websites, phone numbers, emails, the list goes on.

4.) Rescue time

Rescue time is a Time management software that shows you how you spend your time & provides tools to help you be more productive. To be more specific, its a online-based time management and analytics tool that gives you the ability to block out the distracting parts of the internet for a period of time you specify, pause tracking, set up automated scheduling, or selectively delete tracked data.

Rescue time even allows you to get rid of those annoying timesheets by enabling you to manually assign blocks of your day to specific tasks and projects, and then letting Rescue Time fill in the details. As a matter of fact, if you happen to forget to assign a specified project time, Rescue Time gives you an easy summary of your time to help you fill in the blanks. Now how cool is that?

So there's four of the many different types of time management plan software that you can use.

But just remember that as with most things in life, any software you choose to use is only as valuable as the amount of time and energy you put in. No matter how great or effective a time management plan program is, it will be of no value to you if you don't put it to good use.