BENEFITS AND TECHNIQUES OF
TIME MANAGEMENT
Recently one of my students Aman of
class XC wanted to know how to manage time or in general about time management.
So this post of mine is dedicated to Aman and it is all about time management
i.e. why time management is important, benefits of time management and time
management techniques.
Why
Time Management Is Important
I just remember when I was a little
girl and my mom wanted to teach me about relevance of time management she would
often narrate me a incident of Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru the first prime minister
of India. Nehruji was known for his punctuality and time boundness, however
there was one person in the cabinet who use to be always late for whatever meeting
was there. Nehruji always asked him to be on time but he always had some excuse
or the other. So Nehruji proclaimed that you are always late. Feeling hurt that
fellow came to the next meeting thirty minutes before the schedule and when
Nehruji came he said with great excitement, “Nehruji today you are late and I
had come thirty minutes before”. To this Nehruji replied, “I am on time and you
either come early or late but you are never on time.” The essence of the story is that time management requires
one to be in time neither early nor late.
As a little girl I did not require
time management as the syllabus use to be very short and I had lot of time to
cover it. But as I grew, with each increase in number of class the syllabus
increased. However the irony was that time remained same i.e. 24 hours. It was
then I started to do time management. But there were many hits and try before I
could finally reach the goal. It did took me a lot of time and I do not want
that my students should suffer because of it. So I typically teach my senior
classes about time management. Here is what I learnt and what I follow and
teach to my students:
As such the term Time Management is
a misnomer, for you cannot manage time however you can definitely manage the
events in your life in relation to time. Many a times, I hear teacher saying
that whatever technique they apply but some part of their syllabi always remains.
Similarly there are students saying only if they had enough time they would
have been able to secure much better marks. However they forget that everyone only
get 24 hours, 1,440 minutes or 86,400 seconds each day. How you use that time
depends on your skills i.e. how you manage your time which involves careful
planning and execution.
BENEFITS
OF TIME MANAGEMENT
Much like money, time is both valuable
and limited hence it must be used wisely. People who practice good time
management techniques often find that they:
• Are more productive
• Have more energy for
things they need to accomplish
• Feel less stressed out
• Are able to do the
things they want to do
• Get more things done
within same limited time
• Relate more positively
to others, and
• Feel better about
themselves (Dodd and Sundheim, 2005).
Having discussed about the benefits of
time management, now I shall focus my attention on the various techniques of
time management.
TIME
MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES
Finding a time management strategy that
works best for you depends on your personality type, your ability to motivate
self and level of self discipline you have.
By incorporating some, or all strategies below, you can more effectively
manage your time.
1.Know How You Spend Your Time: Keep a time log to determine how you are using your time.
Start by recording what you are doing for a week or two. Evaluate the results.
Ask yourself if you did everything that was required i.e. was it spent wisely
or just wasted; determine which tasks consumed the most time; determine the
time of day when you were most productive; and analyze where you spent most of
your time i.e. job, family, personal, recreation, etc. Identifying your most
time-consuming tasks. In addition, having a good sense of the amount of time
required for routine tasks can help you to make more realistic plan.
2.Prioritize
your activities: Having a prioritized “to do” list allows
you to say “no” to activities that may be interesting or provide a sense of
achievement but do not fit your basic priorities. One of the easiest ways to
prioritize is to make a “to do” list. Whether you need a daily, weekly or
monthly list depends on your lifestyle. First, make a
to-do list for the day. Write down all the things you need to get done today,
with no regard to the order.
Date:_____________
1.
|
6.
|
2.
|
7.
|
3.
|
8.
|
4.
|
9.
|
5.
|
10.
|
Having done this next there are two methods to help prioritize
your to do list.
a)ABC rank
order method involves assigning the
letters A, B, or C to various tasks:
A = highest priority activities (must do immediately)
B = second-priority activities (not immediately, but you should do
soon)
C = low-priority tasks or things you would like to do (can wait to
do)
In this
method, assign tasks from your to-do list to the A, B, or C categories as
appropriate to their priority. Once you have prioritized each task as A, B, or
C, then complete the A tasks first, then B, and finally C.
A
|
B
|
C
|
b)Important-versus-urgent matrix: Sometimes it is
difficult to differentiate among responsibilities, all of which seem important.
In this case, the important-versus-urgent matrix helps to prioritize
tasks.
Urgency
|
Importance
|
|
Low
Importance
|
High
Importance
|
|
High
Urgency
|
III
|
I
|
Low
Urgency
|
IV
|
II
|
People have a tendency to direct their energies toward box IV because
these responsibilities look quick and easy. But focus of attention and time
should be on activities in box I, because they are both high in urgency and
importance. Next, put time and attention to tasks in box II, then to box III,
and finally to box IV.
3.
Scheduling your
activities: Now you have a solid idea of
what needs to get done, there are several choices you can make regarding scheduling
your activities. If you have a few major projects to do, try the boxing method.
a. Boxing
Divide you
day into five parts: morning, noon hour, afternoon, dinner hour, and evening
(or designate other parts of the day if these don’t fit your particular daily
routine). Then write down the significant tasks and assign them a block of time
that is most suited to your schedule.
TIME
|
ACTIVITY
|
8:00AM-12:00PM
|
|
12:00PM-1:00PM
|
|
1:00PM-6:00PM
|
|
6:00PM-7:00PM
|
|
7:00PM-10:00PM
|
b. Time
Mapping.
If you have
many little things to do, try the time mapping schedule.
8:00
________________________________________
8:30
________________________________________
9:00
________________________________________
9:30
_________________________________________
10:00
________________________________________
10:30
________________________________________
11:00
________________________________________
11:30
________________________________________
12:00
________________________________________
12:30
________________________________________
1:00
________________________________________
1:30
________________________________________
2:00
________________________________________
2:30
________________________________________
3:00
_________________________________________
3:30
_________________________________________
4:00
_________________________________________
4:30 _________________________________________
5:00
_________________________________________
5:30
_________________________________________
6:00
_________________________________________
6:30
_________________________________________
7:00
_________________________________________
7:30
________________________________________
4.
Execution Techniques:
Execution is the implementation of your prioritized schedule. Some
of the tips to help you execute your daily schedule:
a. Assign a deadline (goal) for
each task or project.
b. Break large projects down
into smaller tasks, and assign a deadline for each task.
c. Work on one section of the
project or task at a time. Work until it is complete. Experts indicate that it
is better to have one or two completed tasks than a handful of unfinished ones.
d. Reward your accomplishments
with small pleasures to motivate yourself to accomplish designated goals. Avoid
immediate gratification that is; reward yourself only after satisfactory
completion of each job, not before.
PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT
Principles for effective time management are
derived from researches in field of time management and motivation theory. Try
to keep these principles in mind as you schedule and calendar your time.
1. Commitment: If you can’t commit devoting time
to a task, don’t put it in your schedule. Only, schedule tasks that you WILL do. Be brutally realistic, not idealistic when making your schedule.
Creating a schedule you can’t actually keep is setting yourself up for
frustration. If you don’t actually stick to your schedule it will soon become
useless. This might have happened to you in the past.
2. Pursue
fun and recreation: Make time for enjoyable, rejuvenating and satisfying activities like
organizations, sports, and entertainment. Organize your academic and other
obligations AROUND these commitments. For you must have heard “all work and no play
make jack a dull boy”.
3. Focus
on time rather task: Think of your day in terms of time, not the tasks you have to
do. Devote time to important tasks every day. It’s difficult to predict how
long a task will take, so it’s hard to schedule with great precision. But you
can reliably schedule regular intervals of time and get into a routine.
4. One
thing at a time: Researches have shown that multitasking is a myth. In actuality, we are
switching back and forth between tasks. With each switch we pay a cognitive
cost and a time cost. It takes time to get mentally back into the task, thus reducing
efficiency.
5. Divide
your time: Students
devote chunks of time to a specific class on a regular basis. Make it part of
your schedule, your routine. Estimate how many hours per week you want to
devote to a class. Set aside this many hours for working tasks in the course. Divide
your task into pieces and allow specific blocks of time for specific pieces of
a big task.
6. Do not
procrastinate: If you can do so, schedule the things that are most important to you
first thing in the day or at the first available time slot. Anything that gets
scheduled later in the day has a greater chance of getting interrupted. You
won’t be thinking or worrying about your work during your leisure time if you
get academic tasks done first.
7. Make a routine: It takes 21 days to create a habit.
With good habits you don’t have to take hard decisions, thus you are less
likely to make wrong ones.
8. Maintain
flexibility: Don’t
schedule every hour of the day, leave some empty time slots, and schedule in
recreation time.
9. Organize your environment:
a. Choose carefully where you study
and do other tasks: minimize distraction; maximize focus.
b. Use physical reminders to pursue
your goal.
c. Instead of friends being a
“distraction”, enlist their support:
i.
Study
buddy/group work on problem sets, readings, etc. in your shared course
together.
ii.
Get
a study/writing partner same place and time, but not the same course.
iii.
Ask
friends NOT to call you at specific times. Ask them to help you stick to your
schedule.
10. Delegate i.e. get
help from others: Delegation means assigning
responsibility for a task to someone else, freeing up some of your time for
tasks that require your expertise. Delegation begins by identifying tasks that
others can do and then selecting the appropriate person(s) to do them. You need
to select someone with the appropriate skills, experience, interest, and authority
needed to accomplish the task. Be as specific as possible in defining the task
and your expectations, but allow the person some freedom to personalize the
task. Occasionally check to determine how well the person is progressing and to
provide any assistance, being careful not to take over the responsibility.
11. Stay Healthy: The care and attention you give yourself, is an important investment
of time. Scheduling time to relax, or do nothing, can help you rejuvenate both
physically and mentally, enabling you to accomplish tasks more quickly and
easily. Learn to manage time according to your biological clock by scheduling priority
tasks during your peak time of day, the time your energy level and
concentration are at their best. Poor time management can result in fatigue,
moodiness, and more frequent illness. To reduce stress, you should reward yourself
for a time management success. Take time to recognize that you have
accomplished a major task or challenge before moving on to the next activity.
Aman I hope it suits your purpose and you are able to manage your
time better.
REFERENCE:
Dodd, P., & Sundheim, D. (2005). The 25 Best Time Management
Tools and Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy. Ann Arbor, MI: Peak Performance Press, Inc.
Thank you everyone for
viewing this blog, liking it, sharing it, sending your comments and subscribing
to the blog and letting it fulfill the purpose for which it was made.
For
more articles:
Ø If you are facing the difficulties
in managing stress during this covid times than sure to read this
-Combating
Stress During Covid Times
For
FREE Career Counselling read:
Podcasts:
0 Comments