Importance of time management
Time is wealth, time is health, time is everything. You have nothing despite having everything if you don’t have time. And contrarily, you have a chance of having everything despite having nothing if you have time.
Time is life, and time management is life management. Does that not give enough significance to time? And that’s why managing such a fast depleting asset is of utmost primacy.
We’re speaking of the most equally acquired equity irrespective of the rich and poor. The successful and the rest. But success is so for a reason, better utilization of the resource? Time being the prior most.
Plainly speaking, time management must be your first priority in life. Why? Seriously? Will you be asking that?
Managing time is sort of an unrealistic term as one cannot manage time because it is unalterable, unmodifiable, unadjustable, and not creatable. We can’t slow it, cultivate it or destroy it.
So literally speaking, time management is more about adjusting and managing ourselves. All so as to make the best use of time. It’s the utilization of time to make it valuable that gives time management importance.
Value of time
Admire the successful people you see around? Do they have power, reputation, money, status? Perhaps, but let me tell you what you have more than them? It’s time. The very thing which when they had they used it to be what they are now.
And everyone including you has the opportunity which they had if you have time. The more time you have more is the probability of achievement if you use it efficiently. It’s the efficient use of time which assures your personality development.
Your resource for success declines with time passing away, in normal conditions, not considering financial success which would rule out the luck factor which we aren’t talking about. But don’t you let that demotivate you as it’s never too late or at least now is better than never.
And for those who are not convinced, time will surely convince you, but don’t let you be that person because, by the time you realize, it may already be too late. Because, unlike other resources, time is that which when lost or wasted is gone forever.
Now the value of the time spent already isn’t about how many hours and minutes it was, it’s about what it was spent on. It’s the quality of time that makes it more valuable, not the quantity. Though every second in its quantity is invaluable because that’s what could be utilized to make it worth it. This is termed qualitative and quantitative time.
Benefits of time management
You hear that everywhere whenever you speak with someone or you read about time management, you’ll come across the following benefits that time management will:
- Reduce stress and frustration
- You’ll feel better
- You’ll get more confident
- You won’t have urgent matters which will be resolved on time. You won’t be the man of the last hour.
- You’ll develop self-discipline
- You feel empowered as you’ll be getting things done.
- Gain more time to do what you enjoy.
- Being more productive.
- More enthusiasm to get more tasks done.
- Sense of achievement.
And you name it, I’m sure you can list a lot more. It adds to the overall quality of life.
Methods
It is of utmost priority to understand that time management, it’s not meant to create more time, which of course we cant’. It rather is about managing it in a way to make the best use of it.
And it’s not even about stuffing activities in a limited time window available, but it’s about getting the task accomplished, in an efficient way of course. As already stated, it’s not the time which we try to manage, it’s, in fact, we ourselves who are managed to accommodate the best utilization of time.
Priorities
The first and the most essential resource you require to finish a task is time. Everything else is on a secondary level. You’re running out of it? You’re a dead man. Maybe you’re responsible enough not to waste your time, but what if you have more demand than the supply?
I mean what if you have more work than the time available? Then you must be smart enough to prioritize it. So that no important work is undone and what is left which anyway wasn’t possible to accomplish in the available time is of least importance.
Smart work
Work done smartly is smart work. If your work is done efficiently in the best way possible which takes the least time and effort then it’s smart to work. Which should yield the same output of course, if done without consideration of time and ease. Smart work lets you do more work in less time and strain. Who wouldn’t want that?
I by no means am trying to promote laziness or am certainly not against hard work if you’re of the opinion, then I strongly suggest you stop. Finally, to be smart, you need to work hard. And if you work smart and hard, then bon voyage! You’re on your way to success.
“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”
Vince Lombardi.
Practicality
You need to have experience of a task or your whole life in a sense if you are planning to make a schedule and manage your time.
Normally people go wrong when they out of enthusiasm and the boosting willpower (which often is temporary) make a schedule out of their imagination of ideal usage of time. Which no doubt could be ideal but as often it turns out, not practical.
And this impracticality, when you see it, get you disheartened. As what benefits we listed in time management when done efficiently, the otherwise situation goes in contrast. Hence, consequently, you will start losing, motivation, hope, confidence, and energy.
Efficiency and Effectiveness
You certainly should be capable of completing a task in the best way possible but it’s equally important to know how and when will the task be most effective.
No matter how efficiently you finish your task, at the end of the day are your objectives attained are what is most important. If you plan, work with efficiency, still, the level of achievement if is less despite the work done, then the effectiveness is to be worked on.
Bear in mind that just like any other task, here also the outcome is the ultimate goal, not the process. And time management is just the most efficient and effective way to achieve the desired outcome.
Self-management:
No matter how much you plan, planning is the next step of wishing if you want to take it further. You ultimately need the willpower to execute the schedule you’ve made and retain and sustain yourself.
And unless you make it a habit it becomes your nature, you may not enjoy the fruits it’s supposed to yield. Sustenance is the key here. Time management perishes without self-management.
Should we have a to-do list?
Do you know that a normal to-do list is full of important tasks? but we come across more tasks that are more intense in urgency leaving the task undone.
40% of all the tasks in a to-do list are left undone and those undone but important tasks get buried under the lump of newer tasks. Eventually, you feel that nothing is done and all you get is an ever-increasing list of unachieved tasks.
That must explain why successful people don’t use to-do lists. These are regenerative monsters that make sure that you keep running to get rid of them. But for every line, you strike three more come into existence. A recent study found that only 17% of the population can accurately estimate the time something will take.
Why not use a to-do list?
- You’ll feel underachieving
- It’s a bottomless pit hole.
- We underestimate how much time would a task need. Consequently, it’s undone and you’re in debt.
- It also will get you inclined to get tasks done in sequence irrelevant to the priority and impact one has.
- It often gets you occupied in a task less important.
I won’t ask you to dump the to-do list, I suggest you keep it but don’t restrict it with time. Pick the one which is most important right now. Go in a sequence of descending importance and impact level.
Respond to failures, don’t react:
Things are not going to go as we plant, not often at least. After all, we’re humans, our life is not a program, is it? Don’t expect that your day will be a replay of the recorded timetable and schedule that you’ve made, it won’t.
But, when you do see the deviation, don’t react, think and respond to the situation as to how to rectify it. Reaction won’t do any good, ultimately it is a loss that makes things worse. Be bold enough to embrace it and keep your cool because only then you’ll be able to modify it in your favor.
Identify the loopholes
We aspire and decide to do something but our determination gets shaken by the practical situations which we don’t plan about.
We’ve to foresee the possibilities and probabilities of execution of a task, how much time and energy would a task consume? will I be ready for the next task? These are the questions we must ask ourselves while we’re making a daily schedule or managing our time.
And most importantly keep in mind that no matter how perfect our time management is, we’re prone to make errors, and predicting the exact is very difficult if not impossible.
