Time Management — The easy way
"Time and tide waits for none". Almost all of us would have heard this proverb at least once in our lives. The time that is lost cannot be regained by any means, making it such a precious entity. We would have come across people who say that they do not have "enough" time to do something that they have been longing to do. The reality is never the case of not having enough time. People do not know how to organize their activities into different time slots, thereby wasting quite an amount of time!
Time management is the process of planning and continuously spending time on certain activities in order to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity. When a person uses time efficiently, it gives him a choice in managing his activities according to his time and convenience. This in turn reduces daily life stress and makes life a whole lot easier. It offers the much needed freedom of choice as the activities are organized and wastage of time is reduced. There are certain tools and techniques that help in time management when it comes to accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals within a deadline.
Let’s break down the time management process into four simple steps:
1. Creating an effective environment:
The easiest way to do this is to get organized, protect one's time, achieve through goal-management and goal-focus, and also recover from bad time-habits. Write down the things to be done, decide upon schedules and deadlines, keep your belongings in fixed places so as to make it quicker to find them, dispose of unnecessary items in order to make it less complicated, reduce your responsibilities and work hard to accomplish your tasks. Protecting your time basically means avoiding the things that you don't want to do. Spend your precious time only for activities that are important to you. Otherwise, it will just be a matter of time wastage and useless stress. Keeping track of your goals will help you evaluate your performance, get guidance, and motivate yourself to take action. Bad time-habits involve spending your time on activities that are less important because you are not aware of the priority, not planning your activities ahead of time, doing easier tasks rather than the ones that are important due to the urge to have it completed quickly, and giving up to mental setbacks such as procrastination. Each task has a specific time at which it can be executed in the most effective manner. For example, mentally demanding tasks should be done during early morning, the time at which the brain functions the most.
2. Setting priorities:
There are two different techniques - accomplishing goals as a priority and fixing gravitational goals (the goals that attract actions) manually. The things that are more important to you, are the ones that have higher priority in your to-do list. When the goals you set are clear, consistent, worth your time and achievable, you tend to work towards it. In this step, the tasks are given importance ratings, the deadlines for completion are decided and, most importantly, priorities are given to individual tasks.
3. Eliminate unproductive tasks:
Focus on the details, analyze task management methods, postpone irrelevant tasks, manage rest, sleep and leisure and make leisure time productive to eliminate non-priorities. Dividing the tasks into different categories and focusing on the details gives us a better understanding and differentiates the tasks based on their importance. Analysis of task management methods must be conducted from time to time in order to identify their faults and limitations. Irrelevant tasks must be kept to the last, since these are the tasks that should be done only if there is any time left after accomplishing the tasks that are important to you. It is equally important to find time for rest and recreation as it is to find time for achieving goals to ensure that the person remains energetic and is able to give his maximum output during work. It is just as the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’.
4. Implementation of goals:
This requires a list of tasks to be executed. This is done to get an idea of the whole picture and also to keep track of the progress in accomplishing the tasks. Using a task list is much better than trying to remember the tasks. If you opt for the latter, there is always a chance that you might forget at least some of the data. Trying to remember the list is a risky choice. After the completion of a task, it is checked or crossed off from the list.
Time management definitely changes your life for the better. You will have the power to get things done. You couldn’t do it earlier simply because you were lazy and ignorant. If you are unable to complete the activities in the fixed time constraint, don’t be disappointed. Remember, "Practice makes a man perfect". Time management gifts you a lot of free time which you can use for recreation or other productive activities! Successful time management provides a sense of satisfaction. It also builds qualities such as confidence, responsibility and punctuality. A person who manages time efficiently is considered to be the most reliable. Always keep in mind that time is a resource. Use it wisely, and then you shall accomplish wonders!
