Among the many things that life coaching and career coaching people consult on, time management is a big one. We’ve often heard this term thrown around in leadership literature and other business communications, but it’s extremely hard to really define the details without looking at this on a case-by-case basis, at what each person does, and how they handle their time.

It’s clear that there are a lot of distractions in today’s world. Our ubiquitous mobile devices and reliable Internet connections don’t help. Although they might optimize business processes, they’re also big temptations for spending too much time on peripheral tasks, or whittling away the hours without getting core goals and objectives done.

So how do you really handle time management? How do you conquer these problems and emerge victorious? Here are some tips that we’ve found valuable as a top staffing service in the Ontario, California community.

Use Your Daily Planner

The reality is, without a daily planner, lots of people are lost. This is especially true if your workday has any level of abstraction — if instead of being able to measure productivity units like piece-work workers do, you’re having to attend a lot of meetings, do a lot of behind the scenes work, or spend time on tasks in “cost centers” that don’t generate their own revenue.

The daily planner helps put all this in perspective by allocating time for each of these abstract tasks.

Keep Tasks from Ballooning

You can have a great list in your daily planner, but what if it doesn’t work that way?

The next step beyond allocating time is making sure that those allocation tables are followed. That means cutting out a lot of distractions that come from momentary e-mails, texts or posts. Focus on the task at hand until the time is done, and then address those messages that came in the meantime. Handling things in digestible blocks helps define your timetable and controls aspects of time management.

Resist the Drama

No matter what industry you’re in, workplace drama is a constant.

There will always be those things that deserve their hour-long conversation, about what so-and-so is doing and how they’re changing the rules, or how somebody is not following through on their job, or what he or she said in the break room, etc., etc.

It’s tempting to spend a lot of your workday talking about these things, because they are relevant to the workplace, and they do fit into the big picture. But every minute spent this way decreases from minutes that can be put toward important tasks. Sometimes it’s even appropriate keep conversations on hold until the workday is done, and then if you have to blow off some steam, maybe that’s OK. But the work always has to come first, or you run the risk of getting further and further behind.

These are just some of the basic and fundamental ways that professionals handle one of their most valuable assets, their time. Employers don’t always do this kind of time management for people. On a basic wage level, a lot of rules are in place to make sure people work productively. But above that level, there’s often a lot of self-reliance and individual initiative involved. So being your own boss means having the discipline to back up your time management ideas.

For more on everything you need to succeed in business, keep an eye on the Full Steam Staffing blog, a resource for companies and job seekers alike.