The key is time is precious. Now let me give you my favorite description of time by Bill Bailey.
“Life is not just the passing of time; life is a collection of experiences their frequency and their intensity” – Bill Bailey.
life is not just watching the clock tick away; life is a collection of experiences their intensity their frequency. So, it’s not just about how long you lived, but what were you able to accomplish while alive. Martin Luther King Jr. lived for only 39 years and America is yet to recover from his impact with a National Holiday to his name.
Now let’s talk about the management of time. Here is an important foundation we should set on when to start. Now note this one down on time management; when should you start the day? As soon as you have it finished. Plan the day the best you can leaving plenty of room for improvising and surprises and all the stuff that happens during the course of the day. But if you have planned a good productive day before you start that day, you will not believe how much more valuable your time will be. Don’t start the day until you have it finished – planned (Very Important).
“Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life.” – Alan Lakein
Here is the next one, don’t start the week until you have had it finished. Now to lay out a week is a pretty good challenge, but just like your day, leave plenty of room for improvising and surprises and all the stuff that happens during the course of the week. Next don’t start the month until you have it finished. The places to go and the people to see, your study plan, books to read, and all the rest of what you want to accomplish during the course of 30 days. Don’t start the month until it’s finished. And then here’s the big one this is really challenging don’t start the year until you have it finished to the best of your ability. We know It can’t be finished minute by minute but in terms of the sweep of what you want to accomplish make sure that that is set and ready to go by the time January 1 rolls in. You may out-perform your plan by the first quarter or under-perform with the need to revisit your plans, still, that is okay. The important thing is you must have a plan for the year.
So, I want to give you a few things that might help you to get a handle on the management of time. Here is the first one.
You run the day or it runs you
Part of the key to time management is just staying in charge. But here is what usually happens, we start something and we are in control, but as time starts to unfold pretty soon, we start losing control. We may have started something like start a project and you are running it and pretty soon the project starts running you, starts controlling your time, like when you can study, when you can spend time with friends and family when you can travel, events you can attend, and the list continues. The bigger problem is some people are not even aware we have left the driver’s seat and we are no longer in control.
“Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator.” – Robert Orben
You have to stop every once in a while, and say hold it who is in charge here? So here is a good phrase to jot down “some things we master and some things we serve” that is the nature of life that is just how it goes on this spinning planet of ours. The good news is the choice is ours we can make sure we become the master. Ensure you run the day, you run your schedule, you run the enterprise, you run your academics and study plans you stay in charge. Now here is how you can stay in charge.
“For every minute spent in organizing, an
hour is earned.” – Harvey Mackay
Be Goal-Oriented
Have your written set of goals with you at all times then prioritize your goals and decide their implementation in order of importance. Then constantly review your goals, and have your goals match up to a well-written game plan or implementation plan. The game plan that says take it out of your head and put it down on paper. Then with the game plan in hand, try to separate the majors from the minors, the really important things from the things you just have to do.
Prioritize Your Activities
Then prioritize is this a major day or a minor day and adjust your time accordingly, is this a major conversation or a minor conversation. A lot of people don’t do well in getting daily results and here is why, “they major in minor things”, they spend too much time on things that don’t count and too little time on things that should count. Practically, let’s say you are about to decide on a task to engage in but before you do, decide is this a task that is critical to my goal, my academic goals? is this a minor task not urgent and not that important? If it is a major task, then it may need a little preparation and more time apportioned to it, if it is a minor task, not much time should be apportioned to it and the discipline to maintain this should be developed. Doing this little evaluation will save you a lot of time and maximize results on your major and minor tasks.
“Things which matters most must not be at the mercy of
things which matter least.” – Goethe
Do Not Mistake Movement For Achievement
Next time management essential is do not mistake movement for achievement, this is very important as the ultimate goal of your time management effort is effectiveness and efficiency in getting results. You probably know some people around you who are just plain busy being busy. The goal here is to be busy being productive. It is easy to get fagged out by being busy. Look at this scenario, a student comes home at night flops down in the easy chair says I have been extremely busy today, but the real question is doing what? Getting what result? I mean it is what you are doing and the results that is the real key, not the being “extremely busy”. Some people are extremely busy daily going round the same routines or going round circles. They are not making much progress, as a result, it is important, we do not mistake movement for achievement. Evaluate the hours in your days and see if there is not a lot of wasted time in there that you could manage better or do more with.
The Skill of Focus or Concentration
The next key to good time management is good concentration or focus. It’s important to note that I called it “The Skill of Focus” which means it can be learned and improved upon. To be effective in time management, we just have to zero in on the job at hand. Concentrate, do not start your day until you get to the day’s activities. Someone once shared his experience of how he used to start his day in the shower, trying to compose a letter in the shower in his mind. The cobwebs haven’t been cleared out yet, he mentioned he was not even fully awake yet he is trying to compose a letter. According, to him he found out it doesn’t work, he was not effective. Wait till you get to the activity before you start the activity, wait until you get to school before you get to your academics in the morning. Do not start your schoolwork on the breakfast table it’s not good for the family. Here is what you have got to do, on the way to school concentrate on the way, in the shower concentrate on the shower, at the breakfast table concentrate on your family, In-class concentrate on the particular class not what happens after, not a seemingly important subject coming up later in the day. wherever you are be there don’t be somewhere else. Give whatever you are doing the gift of attention, give people the gift of attention, concentration.
“If you want to make good use of your time, you have got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.” – Lee Iacocca
Learn To Say No
Next time management essential is to learn to say no. Unfortunately, it’s easy in a highly social society like ours to just say yes yes yes and over obligate yourself. Then it now required all those phone calls and all that time to back out of it and redo what you have said yes to initially. Do not say yes too quickly, better to say I don’t know if I can make it but I will give you a call to confirm. Better to say you don’t know than to say yes yes yes too quickly trying to be nice and then having to back out or because you are overwhelmed doing a bad job in what you agreed to. One of my favorite authors shared a saying of one of his colleagues on this topic which was “don’t let your mouth overload your back”. Committing too soon too quick being too eager to please are detrimental to a good time management routine. Appreciate yourself, your time, appreciate your own limits, know your limits because we all have them. Know when your commitment to someone else will end up taking time away from yourself and from your family, have a healthy self-appreciation for your special time alone and with those you love and those who love you.
This is especially important for charity work volunteer work as well, you can’t immediately say yes to offers that sound prestigious, you can’t immediately say yes to social functions, things that sound like a lot of fun before thinking them through. Live your life “intentionally”. You can say maybe and take time to evaluate what is an important contribution to society from what will just take time away from your goals and your family. Be eager to achieve your goals don’t be so eager to please everybody. Appreciate your own limits, you don’t have to fill up every second of the day, take time to appreciate what you have accomplished. Take time to enjoy the fruits of your labor, your success should be a pleasure, appreciating what you have got and what you have done and who you have become is important. It is an important component in fueling your future achievements. Just knowing that you have accomplished in one day what you laid out in your game plan, just knowing that you have finished all you started out to do that day. That is encouraging and it is these little daily advantages that you are gaining that continue to fuel your achievement.
Little achievements are just as important as big achievements, why because you can’t appreciate the big achievements without first appreciating the little ones. Also, not important and not urgent tasks can help stop a future crisis when implemented at the right time. If not, a not important and not urgent task can become an extremely important and urgent task in the future if neglected. Hence, set your priorities, concentrate on the task at hand, and don’t get distracted by trying to please everyone.
Finally, Time is your most valuable resource because you have a limited amount of it. Once spent, it is gone FOREVER!
