TIME MANAGEMENT 3
Time management
Time management is an essential skill that will see an individual accomplishing their assigned tasks as well as meeting the goals within the specified duration. An individual will earn easily achieve more while reducing the pressures that are accompanied by strict deadlines if time management is in place (Grissom, Loeb, & Mitani, 2015). To do so, there are steps which one has to undertake on a daily basis to achieve an effective time management schedule and they include the following:
Having a well-defined focus.
Before starting a day, an individual should have a clear image of what to accomplish before the end of the day. So the first task that one encounters after waking up is designing what to achieve before the day ends. Before embarking in any other activity, this should take priority since performing other tasks before deciding on what to may make an individual fail to prioritize the activities leading to failure in meeting the day’s goals.
Focus on the “must do” activities.
Some activities are urgent and need to be attended to first before doing the other tasks. These activities include those associated with approaching deadlines or those that will affect the completion of the others and therefore, they must be done first.
Identify the most valuable tasks.
In any given project that an individual is carrying out, there are the most profitable activities and activities that exist to supplement the main activities. In such a scenario, an individual will identify those activities that seem to be the most valuable to the project under investigation.
Avoid distractions
With an environment free from disturbances, an individual is capable of performing an activity with the least time possible. While choosing activities, be sure to identify sources of interruptions and find a way to minimize them before embarking on the activities at hand.
Avoid deferring the deadline.
It is always important to make sure that the tasks are completed on time as you had previously assigned their completion. If there is difficulty in meeting these deadlines that you had set, letting others know that you have set a deadline can help since they will keep on enquiring if you are through with the task.
Tackle one task at a time.
Multitasking is not a good practice while dealing with time management since dealing with many tasks at the same time results to losing the flow of a task translating to spending more time on the tasks.
Have a review of the day.
Take some time to look at the activities that you have accomplished and know which you did not achieve. Establish the causes of your failure for the unaccomplished tasks and know which tasks that you did not complete need to be attended first the following day while rewarding yourself if you achieved them all.
Factors affecting time management
Failure to have a clear focus of the day’s activities leads to the failure of achieving what an individual wanted to accomplish by the end of the day. Tasks that are not a priority being completed first means that they will hinder the valuable tasks and which are more critical from being completed. Multi-tasking serves to increase the time needed to finish a certain task and therefore, discouraging such behavior leads to faster completion of tasks. Choose the working environment carefully aids in avoiding distractions that may hinder task finalizing within the specified period hence a situation that can cause distractions is avoided. Postponing of the deadlines means that more time is spent on a task which could rather be used in performing another task (Mackenzie, & Nickerson, 2009).
References
Grissom, J. A., Loeb, S., & Mitani, H. (2015). Principal time management skills: Explaining patterns in principals’ time use, job stress, and perceived effectiveness. Journal of Educational Administration, 53(6), 773-793.
Mackenzie, A., & Nickerson, P. (2009). The time trap: The classic book on time management. Amacom.