Want more time?

Time Management

This is a very important skill for a person with a lot of responsibilities and ambitions. Using your time efficiently and prioritizing your tasks are the foundations of Time Management. Time Management allows a person to complete all their tasks based on priorities in time. This skill will help people of all ages because we all have multiple tasks that must be done in one day.

Time management is often the reason why some people achieve far more in one lifetime than others.

Significance

Time is by far the most important resource. Time is one of the few resources that is equally distributed among humans. It is something that everyone has at their disposal. Every person gets the same 24 hours every day, but some people tend to get more done in those 24 hours. The reason is they utilize their time better.

Time is the best asset if used properly. Many people have this misunderstanding that money is the most important asset.  Indeed, money is important, but time is more important because wasted time never comes back. Now that we know that our greatest asset is time, we should manage this asset. Hence time management is imperative to us.

 Some steps to improve your time management skills:

1) The Eisenhower matrix

Eisenhower matrix is a planner that helps you prioritize your tasks based on importance and urgency.  The Eisenhower matrix was created by Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States. As a president, Eisenhower had to make tough decisions and had a big workload. Instead of wasting his time deciding which tasks he would complete every day, he devised this matrix to sort his tasks and complete his tasks efficiently.

Breakdown:

In the first quadrant, you would put your urgent and important tasks. Remember they must be both urgent and important. These tasks you will do first. They have first priority. These tasks will have clear deadlines and will affect you significantly.

Example: Studying for Tomorrow’s test.

In the second quadrant, you will put tasks that are not urgent but are important. So these tasks will affect you significantly but do not have to be done immediately. These tasks you will schedule. You will assign these tasks a day and time in the future before their deadline. You don’t have to worry about them now.

Examples: Exercising, Socializing, Reading books

In the third quadrant, you will put tasks that are urgent but not important. These tasks are generally errands that don’t have to be done specifically by you. Such tasks should be delegated. Now everybody does not have the ability or circumstance to delegate work so they can do these after finishing tasks in quadrants 1 and 2. The tasks or activities in this quadrant will not affect you greatly.

Examples: Getting groceries, paying bills, taking out the garbage,

In the fourth quadrant, you can put activities that are neither important nor urgent. Generally, these activities are unnecessary. But some of these activities may give you entrainment or pleasure. So, we should try to eliminate such activities or at least minimize the time we invest in them. These activities can be done after you do all the activities in the other three quadrants.

Examples: Chatting online, Watching T.V., listening to music, Scrolling through social media

The examples given above are generic, they may not be the same for you based on your priorities.

2) Guard your time

We all need to learn how to protect our time and use it to its fullest.  We are inevitably going to have to say no to some people when it comes to spending time. That is fine. You can’t just say “yes” to everything. Sometimes you will have to say no to certain social events to guard your time and work on the more important stuff. We all have a finite amount of time and the person who uses most of his time wisely will be able to accomplish more.

3) Use your free time to rest

Whenever you get free time, try to rest and recharge yourself by sleeping or exercising. Don’t waste your time scrolling through social media, because that does not let your mind rest, instead, it stimulates your mind. Whenever you get breaks try to rest and rejuvenate yourself by drinking water and getting ready for the next task. You can also meditate in your free time, which is good for your concentration and focus.

4) Don’t let one incident ruin your day

I see this a lot nowadays; people get upset or get their feelings hurt in the middle of the day or the start of the day and ruin their remaining day over it. You don’t need a new day to feel better. You should not waste your whole day because something unfortunate happened in the morning. Cut your losses and enjoy work throughout the rest of your day. Remember, getting all your tasks and activities done should be your priority. Don’t cry over spilt milk.

Conclusion

Remember the only thing constant in this world is change. As time goes by everything changes, your surroundings and even you. If you used your time sparingly and worked on/did stuff that benefits you then these changes will be good. Time will certainly treat you kinder if you used it properly and didn’t waste it on useless and meaningless activities. It’s your choice whether you want to make time your ally or enemy. If you follow the steps given above, you will use your time effectively. You will be able to complete your day-to-day tasks and even start new endeavours with your saved-up time from not doing meaningless activities.

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”

~Michael Altshuler

On to the next.

-Akash Gaonkar-