Time is an essential element in everything we do. We highly consider time in all our daily activities and encounters with people. But not everyone is capable of managing their own time properly. We either can have too much time or lack of time in doing a certain thing. Some people end up cramming when there is a deadline to beat; some just stay relaxed and composed. Have you experienced having to rush from one activity to another in just a day and cannot even seem to fulfill one? Or have you tried just lazing around when there is work that needs to be done? It is the way we manage our time that greatly affects our outputs.
So, how can we spend our time in a way that will satisfy our goals and plans? There are many different ways to do it. In order to facilitate your time well, understanding the concept of time management is an important thing to undertake.
Time Management Skill
How do you understand time management? It is a set of practices, principles, skills, and tools to aid us in getting more value and essence out of our time with a goal of improving our way of life. The essence of time management is not about completing a lot of things, but it is more of making accomplishments and doing things that are of greater importance. With this said, the goal must be quality over quantity, meaning a more valuable output rather than bulky but with mediocre results.
What is in it for you to have good time management skill? You become more efficient and effective as a person and as a working individual. Accomplishment rate is higher
Evaluating Your Own Time Management Skill
Your quality of work and the accomplishment of daily tasks are bases in assessing how well you have managed your time. At the end of the day, go through your checklist of things to do and mark those that you have completed. Do not worry if you were not able to complete everything; what is more important is that you have delivered an outstanding quality for your daily output. Performance is one of the major elements in gauging your ability to manage time. At work, productivity is one way to show that you have managed time well.
When you finally know WHEN to perform something with ease and efficiency, you are in the process of polishing your skill in time management well. But remember that in some cases, you may not really feel too relaxed doing things at a scheduled and planned manner.
Enhancing Time Management
We can get expert advice from smart managers who have mastered this ability over time with consistency and adeptness. But we can also apply self-learning tips to get us started. Here are some ideas for you to apply:
Start Writing Down Your To-Do List
We seem to forget that we can never rely on our memory too much. There are things our memory cannot retain and would eventually be lost from our cognitive retention. In order to keep track of the activities we will be conducting, jotting these things down on paper is the best thing to do. Write down all your important and not-so-huge tasks on a daily basis.
Prioritize Your Tasks and Activities
After listing down all the things you should do, start evaluating them according to the degree of importance. Start with the things that are urgent and would require more time. From there, you can work with the little and less important activities later on.
Learn to Say ‘No’
Overloading yourself with too much work is not healthy especially in the workplace setting. When your boss gives you a task that is either beyond your scope or not so important and urgent, politely decline the directive. Or, to maintain professionalism, tell your boss that you will work on it at a time when you are free with urgent tasks.
Get Rid of Unhealthy Habits
What are habits that kill time and ruin our plans? Procrastinating is one of the bad habits that leaves you unfulfilled with your daily tasks. You might want to list down these unhealthy practices to remind yourself visually to work on eliminating them from your system.
