Manage Your Time Throughout the Day Better with the 'Time Timer'

Sometimes it's hard to stay focused and use our time as wisely as possible throughout the day. Deb Cabral, the DeClutter Coach, joins us again with a great device to help us stay on task and be more productive during the day.

The DeClutter Coach is back, helping us get organized in a variety of different aspects in our lives. This week, she shows us a fantastic tool that can help you if you feel like you get distracted or have a hard time sticking to a task you need to do, whether it's at home or at work.

I don't know about you, but I have a very hard time staying focused, especially if my day is broken up between meetings, conference calls, and everything else that distracts me from my day-to-day tasks. If I have a meeting at 11:30am and I finished one piece of work (say, writing a blog), and it's 11:15am, I end up wasting those 15 minutes before the meeting starts. It's hard for me to want to start a project I know I can't finish in a certain amount of time, and knowing I have to come back to it. Which is awful, and leads to a LOT of wasted time throughout the day.

If you have the same problem, or just have a hard time getting or staying focused on what you need to do, this little device may be able to help you. I know it's helped me and I KNOW I'm being more productive during my workday. Deb Cabral shows us the "Time Timer" in this week's "Get Organized with Naomi Lynn" video.

In the video (at the top of this page), you can see how the device works. It's just a small timer that shows you with a red bar, how much time you have left. You can set it for any amount of time: 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 24 minutes, even a full hour. As you work on your project, you can glance up and see how much time you have left. There's something so visually-satisfying about seeing how much time you have left without thinking about exactly how much time you have left. The bar slowly runs out, then you're out of time.

The DeClutter Coach also shares with us a clip of her "Organized in 60 Seconds" video about the Time Timer. She explains that it's a great tool to manage game or phone time with your kids or just to keep the family on track. You can break down big projects into little segments, and set a goal time for each segment. Just set the Time Timer and start on the first segment, and you're good-to-go. You can also get details on how you can purchase a Time Timer in the video at the top of this page.

Deb Cabral gave me the Time Timer to try out before the holiday season, just to see if it would help me with my time management (which is something I've always struggled with). At the end of the video, we talk about how it worked for me, and how it seems like something so small, but was able to get me to stay on task, and stop wasting time between two projects (or a project and a meeting). We could all look at the clock, say, "okay, I've got 15 minutes to work on this project. I'll stop at 10:30am." But so many times that I've done that, it will be around 10:22am and I'll think, "ehh, close enough," or something like that. There's just something about this visual tool that helped me stick to it, and not waste those 8 or 5 minutes in between two scheduled events.

The Time Timer is a family owned company out of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the product is made right here in the US. The DeClutter Coach mentions this product has helped a lot of her clients, and I'm so happy it was able to help me, too.

What a way to start the New Year; being able to manage my time better and be more productive each day. We want to thank Deb Cabral for coming in again and giving us these helpful tips and tricks, and telling us about some great products to help us get organized in our lives. You can always get more tips for organizing by following the DeClutter Coach at: OrganizedIn60Seconds.com. You can also visit: DeclutterCoachDeb.com and follow her Facebook Page: Declutter Coach Deb. And we'll see you back here next Monday!