HOW TO USE TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS: OR ELSE RUIN YOUR LIFE
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Where are your hours disappearing to?
Do you wake up every morning feeling like that there always more things for you to do than the time available?
It’s as if there are more activities calling for your attention than you can attend to?
Yet in your opinion you seem to be putting in your best effort to get things done. Somehow, when the day ends, instead of being happy that it’s over, you wish you could hold it and command it to stop for a while to wait for you to complete your tasks.
Ever felt like that? I have been there before. It’s a lousy feeling — being unhappy that the day is over and sensing that the next day is likely to come with even more activities that will leave you more tired and stressed.
The cycle goes on and on…
This is what gets people stressed… that they simply can’t tell where their hours are disappearing to.
How you manage your time will determine the quality of your life. It will also control your altitude as a person, professional, entrepreneur, executive, manager, teacher, student, doctor or nurse.
It really doesn’t matter where you’re in life.
What matters is how efficient, effective and happy you are; as you get things done.
In this post, we’ll share time management tips that will help you begin to view your tasks differently, get them done without stress and still leave you with time to re-energize.
So now, let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
HOW TO USE TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS: OR ELSE RUIN YOUR LIFE
Where are your hours disappearing to?
The Puzzle of 86400 seconds Daily
Why are Time Management Skills Important?
Time management tip# 1 — The ABCD approach
Time management tip #2 The Eisenhower Approach
The Puzzle of 86400 seconds Daily
Let’s put this in perspective.
Every day, a deposit of 86,400 seconds is put into your account.
Never mind how you spent the previous deposit. By God’s grace, you’re assured of a fresh deposit daily (as long as you’re alive).
What an interesting arrangement!
It guarantees an opportunity to all and a fresh start daily. And who doesn’t like a fresh start? No wonder the world almost comes to a standstill at the stroke of midnight of every December, 31. The idea of starting a fresh year inspires humanity more than anything else.
Now, back to the deposit of 86,400 seconds.
This amount is accessible to everyone alive without exception.
At the end of the day, the account is converted to zero balance and a brand-new amount is deposited. There are no rollovers, no carry overs, no left overs. It’s always a fresh start.
So why is it that some people seem to have more accomplished in a day than others? It’s like their accounts were credited with more amounts and others with less or so you imagine.
Guess what, the puzzle continues until you grasp how to manage time.
No matter who you are and what you do, time management is one skill that will be beneficial to you. Whether you’re an employee, a manager, college/university student, stay at home Mum (or Dad), nurse, teacher or even doctor; knowing how to manage your time will help you become more efficient, effective and productive.
Time Management Definition
Time management is the ability to consistently accomplish your tasks within the allocated time and without stress.
It’s basically being able to do what and when you planned within the estimated period. It’s the joy of meeting deadlines without stress; achieving your goals and having all areas of your life healthy with your control and attention.
“Time management means mastering one’s own time and work instead of being mastered by them.” — Lothar Seiwert
The two main components of time management are your time and mind.
Why are Time Management Skills Important?
Time management as a skill is gaining popularity in the world. It has been discovered that it helps people to effectively function not only in business activities but even in personal activities. Furthermore, time management helps you to:
· Reduce stress
· Be more efficient in what you do
· Be more effective in your activities
· Be more productive
· Be happier — the ability to achieve goals and meet deadlines is fulfilling
· Have work-life balance
Time Management Tips
Failure to master time management skills, can lead to frustration and stress. Not knowing what to do and when to do it can make you feel like you are not in control of your life.
This is a feeling that can leave you sore and beaten; where you keep on hoping that things will get better soon. Somehow, this doesn’t just happen.
You have to initiate it. Fortunately, there are many approaches to this.
Time management tip# 1 — The ABCD approach
a) In this approach, you first list all the tasks or activities for the day that need your attention.
b) Go back to your list and mark each of the task as either important or unimportant.
c) Go back to your list again and mark each of the task further as either urgent or not urgent.
d) So now you have 4 categories of tasks. Now distribute them accordingly among the 4 categories namely A, B, C and D as in this template:
Time Management Template
e) In category A — Put all the tasks that you perceive to be important and urgent.
f) In category B — Put all the tasks that you perceive to be important but not urgent.
g) In category C — Put all the tasks that you perceive to be unimportant and urgent.
h) In category D — Put all the tasks that you perceive to be important and not urgent.
i) Allocate time required to complete the tasks in each category.
The most commonly formula used for time allocation is the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.
What it means is that in many occasions, 80% of the activities can be done and completed in 20% of the given time. On the other hand, the remaining 20% of the activities will take 80% of the time.
Think about how you execute your tasks at work place or even at home. If you analyse what you accomplish daily, you’ll realise that the biggest chunk of the work is usually done in a short time. After that you begin to drag your feet and end up taking the rest of the remaining time completing the little outstanding chunk.
j) So here, you divide your list of tasks further into 2 categories. The tasks in category A, B and C will be in the first category. You will give these tasks higher priority and as a result allocate them more time. The tasks in category C will be in the second category. These are the tasks that you will drop off and pay no attention to.
Task categories
Time management tip #2 The Eisenhower Approach
Another way of categorizing your tasks is simply classifying them as either urgent or not urgent vs important or unimportant.
This method is referred to as the Eisenhower Method, which is attributed to Dwight David Eisenhower, a former military officer and president of U.S.A from 1953–1961.
Because of the nature of his work, he had to make difficult decisions daily and this demanded, just like for most of us, that he makes good decisions on which tasks to focus on. He therefore invented this method.
Step 1:
Using this method, you first list all your tasks. Include everything you expect to do in the course of the day e.g., serving coffee, reading the daily news, reviewing Company daily performance reports or even feeding the baby. It all depends on where you are at in life.
Step 2:
Using the matrix below, distribute the tasks according to their respective boxes.
Step 3:
Now that all your tasks have fitted in one of the boxes, it’s time to make a decision on how to handle them. Use the decision matrix below to guide you on what to do with the tasks in their respective boxes.
The secret of efficiency is not doing everything yourself, because you can’t.
Delegate some tasks to someone else and free yourself from unnecessary entanglement.
When you do this, you kill two birds with one stone.
One, you will have full focus and quality time to the tasks that rally need your immediate and personal attention.
Secondly, you will avoid the stress that comes with biting more than you can swallow so that you end up missing deadlines, showing up for important meetings late while looking distressed and disordered.
That doesn’t serve your reputation well.
So now, this is how you make decisions on your tasks according to the boxes they fall under — either 1, 2, 3 or 4.
Decision Matrix
Time Management Skills
From the tips of time management above, there are certain skills that will facilitate mastering your own time and work. These include:
Awareness — Always be aware of the tasks that need your attention
Discipline — Focus your mind on the tasks that need your attention
Decision making — Know which task is more important and urgent than another and give it due attention.
Assertiveness — be strong enough to do away with tasks that are not important and urgent.
Self-motivation — be determined to attend to the tasks as planned, even when it becomes boring.
Evaluation — at the end of the day take note of the incomplete tasks and carry them forward to the following day.
Concluding Views
From the 2 time-management tips discussed, you will realise that the approaches are pretty straight forward, practical and easy to apply on a daily basis.
You can use them anywhere — at workplace, in business and for personal activities. In the next post, we’ll look at 2 more approaches.
When you master the skill to manage your time, you’re likely to be more effective, efficient and productive in all the tasks you undertake.
Consequently, it will be much easier to achieve your goals, enjoy time for leisure and avoid stress.
Try using these tips consistently for your personal and professional success. You will see a difference in your achievements.
Thanks for reading and as always, would love to hear your comments.
