So much to do, so little time seems to be the reoccurring thought during the trend of a fast-paced lifestyle. Now, with technology at our fingertips and communication on a high, it’s easy to see how time can get an escape from us, even though we all get the same hours per day.
“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein,” H. Jackson Brown Jr. said.
We’re given 168 hours each week, yet we seem to be scurrying from task to task—and still procrastinating. If we are all given the same amount of hours, why is it that some people still have a hard time getting things done.
Xiao Xu, writer for Time Magazine, said “We complain about the lack of time, yet we constantly seek stimulations that detract us from our main goals. When we live in an age where a diverse palette of stimulations lures us – “media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age” — it becomes a chore to focus on anything longer than 30 seconds.”
Self-knowledge and goals, along with developing and maintaining a personal and flexible schedule is the ultimate success for time management, according to Dartmouth.edu.
Time management begins with organization. Goal setting is a must when thinking about accomplishing tasks in a timely manner. Be active about planning out your schedule and to-do lists, along with prioritizing to make sure you’re using your time effectively, while avoiding that monster called, procrastination.
According to Entrepreneur.com, there are three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations or actions.
Welcome to your new best friend: the planner. Find a planner or organization tool to help you stay on track during the year, this will help you write down to-do lists, notes and appointments. This will help keep track of your tasks and organize your thoughts. Take the first 30 minutes of your day to plan it out, along with the time that it will take for each task that you plan to complete.
Do not disturb. When you have activities that need completed—so that procrastination doesn’t takeover—put up your “do not disturb sign” and put an end to the distractions. That includes social media, texting, YouTube—whatever seems to distract you from accomplishing your daily tasks. Disconnect yourself from your phone, you can schedule time to answer the emails, texts or voicemails. Visit facebook, twitter and instagram after you have completed your assignments for the day.
Me time. Appointments with yourself is effective, according to Entrepreneur.com. Schedule time in your day to spend thinking about priorities and actions in order to create the best work. This can also include down time. Recharging and refocusing yourself is just as important as planning your time, according to Forbes.com.
Be cognitive of your time. Every once in awhile, do a time audit. According to Forbes.com, make notes: “What could do with a little more time spent on it? What are you spending time on that you don’t really enjoy or value? When are the main points in the day you waste time? Who drains your time? What drains your time? What drains your energy?”
Learn to say no. This might possibly be the hardest. Many of us are “hyperproductive” people, according to Creativitypost.com. We tend to get bored with just one or two tasks, so we feel that we will be more productive if we are juggling multiple activities. However, making a lot of commitments can lead us to “mindless productivity.”Doing more things in a day, can create less value if you don’t plan out the details and focus on what is important.
The totality of the to-do list. Making a to-do list is not about obsessing over how much you have to do, it’s about organizing your thoughts, so that you can focus on one thing at a time. The best way to overwhelm yourself is to constantly be thinking about all the things you need to accomplish in a little amount of time, according to Lifehack.org.
It’s all about working smarter, not harder. Time management skills are valuable not only in the academic world, but also in the “real world.” Balancing your leisure time and work time is important in order to make sure you’re accomplishing goals, but also taking time to relax.
We are busier than ever, according to Jana Jasper, a New York-based productivity expert and author of Take Back Your Time, and now it’s not about managing time effectively, but also efficiently.
“You can see it all around us,” Jasper said. “People talk too fast. We’re always in a rush. We start things and don’t finish them and are constantly nagged by the idea that we’ve forgotten to do something, but we’re not sure what it is.”
Jasper said once you’ve made progress—small or big—that you should reward yourself for the hard work and dedication you had to complete a task or maybe possibly the whole to-do list.
“It’s important to acknowledge and enjoy your success,” Jasper said.
Gabrielle Sharp
Executive Editor