Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes is the time spent in one year. If you think about it, there is so much we can do with that like studying, working, sleeping, reading and all sorts of activities. But do you manage the time you have wisely? Some people do while others don’t. If you need some help, read these steps.
Time management always begins with planning and you start by knowing your limits. This means being sensible about your abilities and not what other people say.
A good example is in college. Before you enroll for the semester, you talk to an adviser who will probably tell you what subjects you should take. If you know that you can only handle 18 units instead of 24, say so. This will give you more time to focus on these subjects rather than dropping or failing later. You then find a way to finish the other subjects like doing them next term or during the summer.
Once you know your limits, you can write down what want to achieve. You can write this on a piece of paper or the board. You then break this down into short-term, medium term and long-term objectives based on how long you think it will take to finish each one.
When these have all been identified, you now plan this on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Once you are finished with one objective cross this out and move on to the next.
For instance, you sleep 8 hours a day, stay in school for 6 hours, eat meals for about 2 hours, study for about 4 hours, engage in extracurricular activities for 2 hours and commute to school which takes about 2 hours.
That is your 24-hour day routine right there and this is different for someone who works. If you think you can balance your time better, make some adjustments so you feel productive day by day.
If you are having problems achieving any of the objectives, take a step back and see what is wrong. Sometimes taking a breather helps you think of ways to overcome the situation.
One alternative is to delegate some of the work and then consolidate it later. That works if you are working on a project in school or at the office since most of the time, teams are created and all of you have to do your part to make the project successful.
Sometimes writing down objectives isn’t enough to help us manage our time. Why? This is because of distractions. Some of these temptations are our friends, television and computer games. To deal with it, you have to learn not to give in to these temptations but rather set time for them.
Naturally, you don’t go out bar hopping or partying when you have an exam or a project due in the next few days so you should exercise self-control and then reward yourself later.
If you still don’t know how to manage your time, you better get help. Fortunately there are industry experts that you can consult to help you get started. You will have more luck finding such professionals on-line rather than the phone directory so type in a keyword like “time management experts” then just choose from the people listed.
Once they help you come up with a plan, all you have to do is make a few changes wherever you think is necessary.
We have the power to decide what we do on daily basis and this includes managing our time but believe it or not, there are certain activities and goals that take longer than others. If we fail to complete them today, don’t worry because tomorrow is another day and that means we have a chance to complete what we were not able to finish the day before.
Just make sure that you are able to finish this before the deadline because failure to do so affects your credibility as a person. Don’t forget that if you are have your own business or working for someone else because either way, the only one you can blame if things go wrong is yourself.
Tags: Business Success, Personal Growth, Personal Success, Self Improvement
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