Time Management Importance 101
Increase your productivity using effective Planning and Scheduling
Time management is a skill that we should all learn and practice. It only requires your commitment and one tool for implementation and later on mastery. Whatever it is your profession you need some form of discipline to organize your life. Time management and organizational skills are related because when everything is organized you achieve more and you will have a clear direction of what you will do and what you need to do with the time that you have.
Poor time management can bring a lot of stress into your life. Events from your family, studies, and personal interests can converge at the same hour and can leave you disoriented on what commitments you should prioritize. And to avoid this scenario from happening you need to organize your daily activities in an order from the most important to the least.
How to effectively manage your time?
To effectively manage your time, you only need one simple tool. It can either be a form of a phone application or you can do it old school. And the tool that you need to effectively manage your time is a Planner.
All successful people, the likes of billionaires all use a planner as their personal time management tool. And if you want to achieve success, whether in a corporate career, as an entrepreneur or by pursuing a passion, start and learn how to use a Planner.
The following are the basic process on how you can effectively use a planner as a time management tool:
- List down in the planner your important routine activities. Write on what day or time you are going to do them. This may include your daily commute and stay in the office. We can label these activities as NEED. These are the activities you need to do regularly to live your life.
- Identify your activities for the week that needs immediate attention. These are the activities that have a big impact on your life when completed. You list them down in your planner and we will label these activities as MUST or your big wins for the week.
- Evaluate the MUST’s if each has a prerequisite. Write the prerequisites down in your planner with its date assignment and let us label them as SHOULD. SHOULD’s are as equally important as MUST’s because it is a direct requirement in completing your big wins.
- At this stage of planning, you will see an organized view of your week. All valuable hours are now occupied and what you can only see are the small pockets of time. These pockets can be allocated for activities that pursue your personal interest, increase your social network or time for your well deserved rest.
After completing the three easy steps, you will now have a visible and organized week. You will have a clearer picture of the days that need more of your attention and days which you can just relax.
Implementation of Time Management
You need to implement your plan and schedule so you can gauge if it works or not. The implementation process is very important because a planner is only a tool. And to make a tool work, you need to use it and put it to the test, and you need to stay committed to following your schedule to maintain the discipline.
“Your Plan changes at the first contact of the enemy”. This statement is derived from army planning quotes and you should understand this very well to avoid the feeling of disappointment. You have a good Plan and Schedule but the realities in life will throw in unexpected occasions that can disturb your balance.
But you can manage these disturbances or schedule breakers by regularly updating your plan and schedule. The updating is part of the implementation process and should be a regular daily habit. It will not take long but it will need your attention.
- Spend 10 minutes before the start of your day to check on your schedule. And it can be after your shower or breakfast. This will give you the direction of what tasks you can complete for the day.
- Then right before your day ends, spend another 10 minutes to check on your schedule and review what you accomplished and write a short description to document your accomplishment. You also spend this time to update any changes of the schedule to keep your week organized. Just always remember to keep your scheduling hierarchy by the degree of task importance. Settle your big rocks first then stack the small rocks on top.
A good schedule is a dependable guide but do not be disappointed if these are sometimes interrupted. Respond to the interruptions wisely and adjust and adapt to the changes. By continuous practice of planning and scheduling you will be more relaxed in managing schedule breakers.
As a conclusion, time management is a skill that we can start to learn and practice by using one tool. A Planner is a simple tool that can help you develop the skill of planning and scheduling. By effectively using this tool you will have a more organized week through placement of activities in their needed day and hour. This will increase visibility of important tasks and your available time which in return, this level of clarity can increase your productivity by showing you what you can do with the time that you have.
Poor time management can bring a lot of stress into your life. Events from your family, studies, and personal interests can converge at the same hour and can leave you disoriented on what commitments you should prioritize. And to avoid this scenario from happening you need to organize your daily activities in an order from the most important to the least.
