With so many responsibilities
requiring attention each day, it is important for people to manage their
time more effectively, SIMON EJEMBI writes
Experts say people are so busy these
days, ‘they hardly have time for anything.’ But it’s hard to succeed
when you do not have time for ‘anything’ as it means you will get little
done. According to experts, the right thing for you to do no matter how
much responsibilities you have to deal with is to ensure that you have
time for ‘everything.’ This means, at specific times, you will have done
something. To succeed in this regard and to avoid joining the multitude
that throw their hands into the sky, exclaiming ‘there is no time to do
anything’, experts say lessons in time management are important. They
stress that while many people have excessive workload to deal with each
day, very few bother to learn how to manage the ‘little’ time they have.
Some of the things you can do to manage time, according to experts are explained below:
Plan your day
To manage your time better, you need to
take note of the time you have and the tasks you need to get done within
that time. When you take not of this, get a day planner or organiser
and break down the tasks, assigning a specific time to each task. Even
if your activity is not defined or is subject to change suddenly, for
those things that a fixed makesure you have set a time frame for it. If
an even or a new task is suddenly assigned to you, all you need to do is
to find a new time slot for the task(s) you have to suspend. In essence
have a schedule on which all your plans and tasks are recorded. In the
course of the day, it is also important to note ideas that may pop up in
your head regarding some other activity that is scheduled for another
day.
Review your schedule
In the course of your day, there may be
need to review your schedule from time to time. When new tasks are added
to your schedule, it is important that you arrange your tasks in order
of priority. What are the things that must be done? What are the things
that can be skipped all together? and what are those that can be
postponed?
While you have to be flexible with your
schedule – surely you can tell your boss to keep his task because you
are busy, it is important for you to avoid being too flexible. This is
because you may spend 30 minutes planning your schedule every day only
to end up not following it at all.
Also, note the tasks completed, you can either tick them or delete them, depending on the type of schedule you have used.
Delegate tasks
Experts advise that people should not
get to use to getting their colleagues of friends to do their jobs for
them. However, they say it is okay to get help now and then. So, look at
your schedule, what are the things that someone else can help you do
easily. You will be surprised how lighter your schedule or work load can
be when you delegate. The 30 minutes you saved by getting someone else
to help you make a delivery may be the difference.
Take advantage of technology
So much can be achieved using technology
these days. And experts say effective time manage is one of them. They
say people need to learn to take full advantage of technology. Take note
of the tasks you can complete using technology and use gadgets at your
disposal to get them done. In the era of teleconferencing, e-commerce
and the likes, there are a lot of things you can get done while sitting
at your desk.
Forbes Magazine contributor, Jessica Kleiman, suggests the following tips:
Create an e-mail free zone
According to time management expert
Julie Morgenstern, who wrote a book called Never Check E-Mail in the
Morning, it’s important to set aside at least an hour each day where you
don’t look at your e-mail. She recommends it be first thing in the
morning so you can dedicate that time to working on strategy and big
ideas.
TIP: If you don’t open up your e-mail to
begin with, you won’t be tempted to look at it. Once that hour is up,
you can check your in-box and, chances are, very few important messages
will have been missed during that time.
Note: this depends on your profession. For some people, checking e-mails is something they must do frequently.
Write your to-do list at night
Before you leave the office or shut down
your laptop for the evening, jot down your assignments for the
following day. If you start working on your to-do list when you come in
the next morning, you’re already wasting precious time that you could be
using to tackle it. It also gives you time to think about your
priorities overnight so you can hit the ground running when you get it.
Get clear on your priorities
Another phrase Morgenstern uses often is
“dance close to the revenue line,” meaning that you should tend to the
things that have the biggest impact on your business first and the rest
can wait. We live in an age of urgency, where everything seems important
and people are looking for instant gratification.
Think about how annoyed you get when
your e-mail or text isn’t returned within five minutes. Remember the
days when you had to wait for a letter to arrive in the mailbox? But if
you allow yourself to be pulled in too many directions, it’s easy to
lose focus of what you really need to do.
Lastly, just know that
you’ll rarely get to every single item on your task list in one day —
and that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up about it. As Scarlett O’Hara so
eloquently put it at the end of Gone with the Wind, “Tomorrow is another
day.”
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