Here's a quick test to see if you've got a handle on your time management:

Are you often sighing that there aren’t enough hours in the day? Despite owning all the electrical gadgetry and time saving devices John Lewis possesses you can barely boil a bag of pasta for your evening meal? Are you secretly relieved when a business client/friend or family member cancels an appointment with you?

Welcome to the world of overwhelm.  This vastly populated sub-continent of wrung out women runs on caffeine, is fueled by lunches gulped down at desks and produces an increasingly exhausted, stressed and demoralised workforce.  It’s a non-sustainable environment that breeds absenteeism, illness and despondency.

As coaches, the two most common complaints we find in business from teams, managers and CEOs is “too much work, too little time” and the sad fact is, it’s not going to change, nor is it going away. You may be a great juggler but who wants to live life like a circus act?

There are however a myriad of ways in which you can buy time, use it more effectively and stop extraneous drains on your energy so you have space to work at your best and relax too. These are our tried and tested tips which will seriously alter your working day.

• Become responsibly selfish and negative – Put your work and needs first. Don't let others push their deadlines on to you. Be firm, do what you need to do first and don't drop everything to fit in other's needs
• Re-set your incoming emails to download once an hour and check them then. This way you are not constantly being distracted from your task. Constant distractions have been proved to diminish productivity
• Build in a safety net – always give yourself 30 minutes each day for speculation, creativity and as a reserve for sudden deadline or unforeseen problems
• Get used to booking out white space in your diary. Even if it is two hours on a Friday afternoon to catch up, plan for your week ahead, strategise or ruminate – don't allow every minute to be accounted for
• If you have a really busy day set an email responder saying you will not be answering emails until 4pm, set your voicemail to say you are unavailable for the day and only in emergencies can they can contact X (your mobile/assistant)
• Don't each lunch at your desk where you will be easy prey for people's wants, answering the phones, chatting and not relaxing. Get some fresh air and come back energised and refreshed
• Do the things you avoid first then you won't drain your energy dreading it all day
• Analyse what is making you busy at work but not productive. Can it be done in a different way? Can you avoid some of the meetings, paperwork, phone calls etc by streamlining how you work? Come up with innovative alternatives to just being busy
• Employ the three D's – Do it, Dump It or Delegate It.
• Forget long "to-do" lists. Focus on 3 main things you would like to achieve in a day and plan how you are going to do that
• Under promise and over deliver

Well being – Time Well Spent
Often we come at the very bottom of our own to-do lists; ignoring our own needs and putting work and family before everything else.  Be sure you add balance to your working week unless you relish the hamster-on-the-wheel existence.

• Use "dead" time commuting to read an edifying book or listen to a relaxation tape.
• Order online so your fridge is full of nutritious pre-planned meals so you don't have to forage from local shops when you're tired at the end of the day
• Meet your partner or good friends for lunch more often
• Join a lunchtime walking, swimming or running club
• Have a treat to look forward each day whether it's a lovely bath, a nice meal or a movie worth watching – it adds meaning and purpose to all that hard work you're doing.

When you start asking yourself: How long do I want to continue being this stressed, tired and unable to have fun? What do I need to sacrifice in order to have a good work/life balance?  You are already starting to take responsibility for the most precious resource we have; your time and how you are living your life.

Real Coaching Solutions offer fun, innovative and highly effective coaching programmes, workshops and leadership packages for women in business.  Visit www.realcoachingsolutions.co.uk