Time Management - Part I
- Time management is a difficult skill to learn, and is one most college student must teach themselves. It is often something a lot of students don’t think about. Budgeting time is a lot like budgeting money – as long as it’s there, you don’t think about it.
- The purpose of time management is to provide structure to you life, as well as give you greater peace of mind.
- Time management also allow you to predict when you’ll be busiest, so that plans to get thing done may be made ahead of time.
- Time management is also an aid in remembering obligations such as meetings, appointments, and special events.
- Budgeting your time also allows you to gain a greater sense of control over your life.
- Planning your time puts you in charge and help you to increase your personal effectiveness.
Time management is about:
- An accurate understanding of how long tasks really take to complete.
- Efficient uses of small amount of time you don’t even realize you have.
- More efficient way of completing the more mundane, but necessary tasks in your life.
**The first key to time management is, knowing yourself. How do you spend time? How do you waste time? Do you avoid unpleasant or tedious tasks? This is called procrastination.
Procrastination has immediate benefits. We can do other more favorable tasks. We can hang with friends, watch TV, or play video games. Unfortunately, this can be stressful sometimes causing bills go unpaid, laundry to go unfinished, even the house can go uncleaned for days or even weeks on end!
Sometimes we allow people to waste our time. Phone calls during study time, unannounced visitors, the emergencies of others, and others who also procrastinate are always people use our time.
Consider that everyone has 168 hours for the week. This is all the time you will get and you can't get anymore until the next week. Phrases like saving time and finding more time really are misnomers. You can't save time nor find more time. What we can do is reduce the amount of time that we spend doing certain activities. For instance, how long does it take you to get dress in the morning? For some it is short while others take longer. How can you reduce the amount of time you spend getting ready in the morning? (Perhaps, get the clothes ready the night before?)
If we treat time like money, we may perhaps spend it more wisely.
Time management depends on you managing you. It's about self-management. Most people manage their time by identifying their goals and supporting them with behaviors. When you think you are wasting time ask yourself, "Is what I am doing right now going to get me to where I want to be?" Examine the pros and cons of your actions.
Statistics support that people are more likely to succeed if they set goals and write the goals down. This helps us develop a plan toward our goals. Establishing goals might mean we have to work on many areas of our lives to accomplish our goals.
TOP 7 Time Management Mistakes:
- Start you day without a plan of action.
- Live an anbulance life (all work, no play or even vice versa).
- Work or live in a messy environment.
- Deprive yourself of sleep.
- Fail to make effective use of downtime.
- Over-rely on caffeine, junk food, drugs.
- Underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a task.
The first key to time management is knowing yourself (how you spend time and how you waste time, etc...)?