‘The busy man has time for everything’
Time management is the art of simply being on time. This includes delivering things before the deadline as well as being on time for work and meetings etc.
This is achieved by managing your time every day and being organised enough to stick to the schedule you have set out to follow.
If you are in a job but haven’t mastered time management, you will often find that you are falling behind on projects. This not only impacts you but your co-workers as well —and no one likes being unable to do their job because someone else isn’t organised enough.
Other than keeping friendly with your colleagues, proper time management takes pressure off you and ensures that you don’t end up doing most of your work at the last minute. This can lead to a lesser-quality end product while you know that you can do better.
This can be quite a difficult skill to maintain, but not a difficult one to pick up. Observe your actions for a few days — how long do your tasks usually take to finish? Which are prioritised over others? Once you have the answers to these questions you can set up a casual schedule for yourself and, as long as you stick to it, never be late for work or a deadline again.
Some of the most important skills related to successful time management skills include:
- Organisation
- Prioritisation
- Planning
Organisation
The habit of organisation aids in keeping a track of the responsibilities and priorities, as what needs to be done first and when to do the other. A to-do list of tasks acts as a map to guide from morning to evening and helps increase in developing efficiency and productivity. A well-organised plan helps you break down large goals into smaller, easily achievable tasks and enables you to complete those tasks on time.
Prioritisation
Another key to successful time management is ‘Prioritisation’. To prioritise daily tasks, is to ensure that the important tasks will be completed first. Starting with the top priority every single task is noted down. As an example, tasks can be broken down in the following manner:-
- A-level tasks: Things that will lead to major consequences if not done today
- B-level tasks: Activities that may have a negative effect if not completed today
- C-level tasks: Activities that have no consequence if not completed today
Planning
The centre of time management is.’Planning., Tasks are prioritised accordingly with a proper plan, which can help avoid confusion and unnecessary stress. A planned work schedule helps in completing the tasks in the given time frame. For example, a plan for a project manager might include ordering supplies, scheduling labour, acquiring the proper permits and so on.
Significance of time management skills.
Success in life comes to those who respect the importance of time and find a way to manage it efficiently. Time management skills help in systematically organising tasks and accomplish them by their deadline.
Proper time management allows one to be creative and proactive with the goals. With a well-defined time frame for each workplace task, it is important to ensure contributing to the company in a reliable way.
Few suggestions to improve time management skills
With limited time at disposal and numerous tasks to accomplish in your professional and personal life, time management is a challenging task. Here are few tips to improve time management skills:
- Prepare a schedule and follow it strictly
- Set some boundaries.
- Fix deadlines
- Set long- and short-term goals
- Manage calendar effectively
- Prioritise assignments
Time is the major asset in everyone’s life, it is how to make use of it, defines the success story. The secret of time is that everyone has exactly 24 hours at their disposal in a day. It is depends on each one how to utilize the best to write down their own destiny.