Time Management Strategies: Are they Effective?

I have been reading different articles of "Time Management Strategies", One thing that most of them write is time management is all about Planning and Prioritizing your tasks.

In brief almost all advise you to do the following:

• Do proper planning of all the tasks on daily basis.
• Prioritize your work, e.g. by making to do list and putting top priority work on top.
• Divide large assignments and tasks into their component parts.
• Review you plan on a regular basis.
• Eliminate interruptions by closing your office door and letting telephone calls go to voice mail.
• Learn to say "no" and to focus on what's important to achieving your goals.
• Find a calendar system you're comfortable with, and use it for all your activities.
• Build flexibility into your schedule to accommodate the unexpected.
• Learn how to effectively delegate.
• Set time limits on tasks.
• Take a break.

I find it weired that most of the article talk about only planning the time management strategy for performing a task rather than identifying minimization of time wastage while doing a task or identification of the reasons for an individual to feel the need for time management strategies.

As we all know that there are only 24 hours in a day and if we add the extra time and effort for planning and executing time management strategies, we end up at the same place. Also. our priority changes on daily basis, one cannot avoid interruptions, sometime its difficult to say no and to delegate.

There is a belief that if you just work harder you can get more things done. Time management operates on the philosophy of trying to cram more and more stuff into your calendar and you end up working harder trying to get everything done.

So the best strategy for effective time management is to identify the time one waste (e.g. long tea and lunch breaks, chatting and talking on phone during office hours, unnecessary status meetings, checking personal e-mail at office time) while going through the daily tasks/chores.

Therefore, my time management strategies are:

• to identify and minimize my wastage time,
  
• start working less than you expect by taking balance amount of responsibility,
  
• to always promise less and deliver more,
  
• to take care of my health by taking meditation/yoga/exercise,
  
• to take task as it comes and change priority as a newer task comes.

So what are your effective time management strategies?