The single-most precious asset people have in everyone’s career or life in general, is time. Time affects everything in everyone’s lives. “Time is gold” as what they say. It plays a crucial part in every employee to get the work done in order to meet the organization’s goals as well as its personal goals.
What is TIME?
- A moment, hour, day and year as indicated by a clock or calendar
- Measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues
Types of TIME
Clock Time - there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour,24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. In clock time, all time passes equally. For example: When someone turns 60, he is exactly 60 years old, no more or less.
Real Time – relative. Hence, depending on what you are doing, you would feel whether time flies or drags. Two types of real time include:
- Slow Time - when bored in an activity, having a bad time – For example: two hours waiting for an appointment may feel like 5 years
- Fast Time - when absorbed in, or enjoying an activity – For example: two hours at the movies may fly by like 15mins
May it be a fast or slow time, everyone gets 24 hours in a day, nobody gets more and nobody gets less, so why is it some people are always struggling to manage their time, and always to squeeze in so much in the 24 hours and still no having time for themselves and complain “I don’t have time”. While others, they are able to manage their time properly, has a lot of time for themselves and are always productive.
What is Time Management?
- Art of arranging, organizing, scheduling and budgeting one’s time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity
- Involves exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities with a focus to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity
Busy vs. Productive
When someone says they are busy, they think they are being productive. However, busy does not always mean being productive. You might say that you are busy doing something but when someone asks what keeps you busy, that is a question mark on your face and you are really not sure what are you busy doing but still you tend to want to be busy. Take a look of the comparison between the two.
According to research, if a mind is focused on too many things at the same time, you will not deliver quality of work in any of those tasks because your mind is in different tasks. Thus, make sure to always try to be productive rather than being busy.
Identifying Time Wasters
Being able to identify time wasters in your day is a good start as well. You never know you waste so much time within your 24 hours that does not help with your productivity.
- Distractions – diverting your attention from a desired area of focus
- Poor planning – scheduled activities that are supposed to be a guide are not being executed or not set out which may create a lazy atmosphere among the team
- Perfectionist – the excessive need to appear to be perfect; this may also include being the “I’ll do it all” type which means trying to do everything to yourself because you think you are the only one who can do it perfectly
- Too much socializing – spending so much on social media that you forgot you have not finish the goals for the day
- Not valuing your time
- Being disorganized
- Procrastination – delaying or putting off tasks until the last minute or past deadline
Being not able to lessen your time wasters, this may result you to be stressed, burnout and low in time management skills.
Effective Management
- Setting objectives and goals – make sure to have SMART goals
- Effective planning – making a to do list, tick off once done and update, be consistent and keep doing it effectively
- Set priorities – basing from the to do list, evaluate and rank them in order of importance and urgency; urgent – requires immediate attention; important – helps you achieve your long term goals and values
- Schedule – make sure to schedule your priorities, what needs to be done now and which tasks that are urgent and more important
- Delegate - Involves exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities with a focus to increase effectiveness, efficiency and productivity
- Eliminating time waster – learn to eliminate them gradually
Value Your Time
Time is Allocation - In your day, wherever you spend your time, if you will start allocating it, categorizing and organizing it, then you will get to know how much time you spend on that all. When you realize how much time would you need in certain tasks, then you have to move things. You will move things around so that you spend your time on the right things. This is the first step in taking charge of your time, understanding where your time is going and then allocating it in the right way.
Time is Energy - Maximize your energy, then you’ll know you will have control over your time. Make sure to maximize your energy in the most important things, otherwise you may get deteriorated.
Time is Money - Time is as valuable as money. The only difference between time and money is “mabuti pa yung pera maibabalik pa, pero yung oras hindi na”. If you use your time in a proper way, then you earn money through your time. It gives you the best tool tip to win and take charge of your time. So, value your time as much as you should.
Methods/Techniques in time Management
- 80/20 Rule – focus on those tasks which are only 20% important but will actually give you 80% of the result
- Einstein Window - the period of everyday where you have your little mental peak, where work feels almost fun. Where you feel the most positive, the most tune in the moment.
- Communicating Availability – start getting proactive about broadcasting your availability. Find some ways to let people know how open you are to being interrupted. Reduce those distractions and then take the final step and make sure to start broadcasting to everyone what your real availability is. Learn to say no sometimes, nicely and politely.
- Productivity Journal – have your own professional and personal journal for you to be able to maximize your to do list
- Urgent vs. Important – make sure to determine your priorities.
- Promodoro Technique – break your workday into 25-minute chunks separated by 5-minute breaks, after 4 repeat, you may take longer break
- Cushion Time – budget extra time for unforeseen contingencies into account
- Reward yourself – you deserve it!
Tools
Benefits of Time Management
Time Management and the Organization
Looking at time management from the perspective of the organization, its benefits include:
- Improved productivity through use of time by personnel
- Better performance in terms of on time delivery to customers
- Increased profitability – through better use of the human and non-human resources
- Improved planning and control of business systems – through time based management
- Better alignment of activities – by incorporating a time bound system for coordination of tasks and projects in the business
- Reduction of stress that arises – may it due to crisis management by reducing the incidence of crisis by better planning
Everybody has to manage their time to some extend whether at home or at work or both/ Most people who have the capacity to manage their time better, makes the working way more productive and leisure time more fulfilling.