Time
management articles
Time management skills
Learn some of the basic time management skills in this article
With the creation of the universe, God gave humankind a miraculous gift. A wonderful gift which cannot be seen or touched but without which there will be no meaning in life. In fact without which it would be difficult to imagine life. It is time! God being kind and just gave this to all of us in equal quantity. He knew that some of His children will not have time management skills.
So He gave it in such a way that they would not be able to
waste all of it. He assured a continuous and fresh supply of it.
Each day He gives us a fresh supply of twenty four hours or
1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds per day to each of us
—poor or rich, good or bad, man or woman.We may have handicaps of education, money, and connections. But we are not handicapped by time. It is given equally to all. It is the most important ingredient in success. Use your time wisely and use your time management skills and nobody can stop you from succeeding.
Time management skills are the key to keeping your New Year Resolutions.
How to use time wisely? Of course, by managing it wisely. You can develop time management skills. Here are a few tips to manage your time.
1.Eliminate Big Chunks of Wastage of Time: We are usually Pound Foolish, Penny Wise. We jump red light to save a fraction of second but before that we might have already wasted hours in some useless activity. This is a very important time management skill - There are big chunks of time which we usually waste—sleeping long hours, wasting time in front of TV, gossiping, in drinking and dining parties, etc. If you spend two hours each way in commuting to office, you have to find some solution to it. Either change office or residence or utilize the commuting time in reading (if traveling by bus or metro) or listening to useful audios.
2.Eliminate Wastage of Time on Irrelevant Activities: Being focused
is an essential time management skill. We are usually not focused in our
life. Not only we should have a single goal in life but all our efforts and
time should be directed towards it. If you want to write a book, not only
you have to eliminate big chunks of wastage of time, but you should also
avoid irrelevant activities such as, may be, a side business, politics, and
involvement in activities of various social activities which may be good in
themselves.
3.Plan your Time: Planning is a very important time management skill.
One obvious benefit is that as you would never put in your plan items of big
chunks of wastage of time and irrelevant activities, they would be
eliminated automatically! Write down your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly,
and may be even more long term plans.
4.Write To-Do Lists: To-do lists not only are useful as reminders,
they also compel one to complete the listed work. If you have written an
item, say, ‘to telephone Mr. X’ and also written his telephone number
against it, you are very likely to telephone him that day. There is a great
pleasure in ticking off completed items from such list! - An easy to use
time management skill.
5.Prioritize: While the to-do lists are great, they may become a
fascination in themselves. Prioritizing is the real time management skill
needed to be learnt. Always write items in the to-do lists according to
their overall priority. Try to write the most important and difficult work
at the top, so that you start with it. The general tendency is to start with
easy and repetitive works first—checking personal emails, making telephone
calls, reading newspaper, filing papers, meeting people etc. While in
themselves they may be important, they leave very little or no time for that
comprehensive report about which you are procrastinating since months.
6.Avoid Procrastination: As the saying goes, ‘Procrastination is the
thief of time.’ The time management skill needed here is to analyze your
internal dialogue which prompts you to postpone. Once you understand the
internal monologue you could change it to solve the problem of
procrastination.
7.The Time Management Skill of avoiding Seemingly Important Activities
which may not be very Useful to you: While many of the present day
facilities define a modern man, depending on your work and position some of
them may not be very useful to you. If you are really busy and focused
person, some of the things and activities considered so necessary for a
modern person may not be useful to you. Depending on your individual
circumstances such activities may be: reading newspapers and magazines,
seeing TV, surfing Internet, checking emails frequently, telephoning
friends, attending meetings, seminars, functions, receiving and seeing off
people at the airport, etc.
8.Delegate: It is useless trying to do each and everything yourself.
Delegate powers and work. It will save a lot of time. The time management
skill of delegating is a tough one for most of the people.
9.Don’t try to be Perfect: Perfection is a good thing. In fine arts
we aspire to be perfect. But in some activities of life, just good would do.
Most of our daily life personal and official chores require that we just do
what is required. The extra time and energy spent perfecting it is generally
not proportionate to extra benefit.
10.Always Remember Time is Money: In fact it is more important than
money. It is priceless. We keep strict accounting between friends and even
family members. But we never keep accounts with respect to time! Be stingy
about time. Lost or spent money can come back; lost time is lost forever.
Try using as much of those Time Management Skills as you can
Gus
Contact: gus@thelifebeautiful.com
www.thelifebeautiful.com
About the Author
Gus is the writer of the recent ebook Be Happy! The Guide comes with an Action Plan. The Guide, divided into three parts of Body, Mind and Heart, and Soul, deals with various sources of happiness and how to be happy. The Action Plan gives To-Do lists, Happiness Quotations, Affirmations and Meditations, etc. We have recently launched a website dedicated to happiness, success, and health. Please visit it now: www.thelifebeautiful.com
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