Looking for some smart advice on managing your time?  Here are some great tips from five experts!

Set yourself up for success each morning.

To change your morning, you need to first change your evening.

If you go to bed late and the house is a mess, the dishes are piled in the sink, you’re way behind on laundry, you don’t have food for breakfast or lunches the next day, and you don’t even know what appointments or events are scheduled for the next day, no wonder you wake up feeling frazzled, stressed, and behind!

If, on the other hand, you go to bed at a decent hour, your house is picked up, you have clothes laid out to wear, breakfast is in the crockpot, lunches are made, and backpacks and your purse and keys are by the door, you’ve given yourself a huge head start on a successful morning.

Instead of trying to get up at some too-early hour and cram in a crazy amount of things in the morning, focus on changing your before-bed routine first.  You might find that this is the thing that transforms your morning much more than getting up early does.

— Crystal Paine at Money Saving Mom

Make a list.

Make a list of the important things, a list you can carry around and look at, a list you can refer to when you get asked to bake a three dozen cookies, give a speech, take a trip, be at a meeting, write a letter, head up the board, attend a conference.

Before you say Yes, read your list.  Does it match?  Is this one of your important things?  Is this part of the stuff you’ve decided to do, to spend your life on?  Yes?  Good?  Go ahead. …No?  Remember this: the good is the enemy of the best, and the semi-important is enemy of the truly important.

— Annie Mueller at FreakishlyProductive

Don’t multitask.

Multitasking kills your productivity.

There are several studies that underline this:  A study by the University of London shows that when you get distracted by phone calls, text messages, and email, your IQ suffers a fall of more than twice compared to marijuana smokers.  A study by the University of Stanford reinforces that multitasking is bad for your work productivity.  Furthermore, your brain gets overwhelmed when faced with multiple tasks.

But how can you stop multitasking?  Focus.

When you work, ignore everything that’s unrelated to the task at hand.  For example, turn off your phone and shut down any email notifications.  When you’ve finished one task, you can move on to the next.

And that’s how you get results.

— Darren at Your Mind School

 Maximize your commute.

The biggest chunk of travel time in most people’s lives is commuting to and from work.  So it would only make sense to optimize this large portion of your life.

Do you drive to work?  You can listen to podcasts or audiobooks . . . Do you take the train or bus?  You can read, write or do anything you want—because someone else is doing the driving for you.  Do you stand on a crowded subway?  This is a perfect opportunity to listen to podcasts and audiobooks.

— Stephen Parato at Productivityist

Choose your joy.

It amazes me when people go through life miserable about how they are spending their time.  It is your life.  It is your time.  Make sure you enjoy what you are doing.  Don’t wait for “someday” to come.  Enjoy your time each and every day.

— Craig Jarrow at Time Management Ninja

What are your favorite time management tips?