Most people have a very poor concept of time, especially of personal time management. They tend to procrastinate a lot and may even find it a virtue. They are in a habit of setting aside the important tasks and do things that do not really contribute to their productivity. In such cases, it is important to instill to these people the importance of effective personal time management so they can actually get things done.
What constitutes good personal time management? It usually starts with understanding one’s priorities. This is highly important especially in a work place where there are usually many projects that needed attention within such short time span and usually with overlapping deadlines.
The problem that we often associate with poor personal time management is the presence of too many forms of distractions. In the office, it is the availability of an internet connection that makes browsing for non-work related websites very easy. This is especially true with the abundance and popularity of social networking sites which are definite time-killers. This is the reason why most companies instruct their IT department to block certain sites to avoid their employees from browsing them.
Another form of distraction is the cell phones. When an employee has a cell phone, he can easily be contacted with people who are not his work colleagues. What this means is that he can engage in unproductive chats with his friends and family and therefore can lose his focus on the tasks at hand.
Probably the greatest of all work distractions are fellow employees. This is when they talk about things that are not related to their work. You are familiar with these talks as gossips and office banters. These are not productive in whatever way and only contribute to further procrastination. No tasks are finished on time because of these bad habits and these actually spread like fire among other employees resulting to a series of backlogs in office work loads.
Here are some tips and suggestions that anybody can follow to have effective personal time management skills.
1. Create a task list. This can be a simple list of the tasks or projects that needed to be finished.
2. Learn to prioritize. It is often more effective to work on the harder tasks first and then do the easier ones last. It has been proven that an employee can spend much lesser time on easier projects as compared to the harder ones.
3. Learn to make good use of time management tools. These tools come in various forms such as organizers, watches, computers, PDAs, time management software and many more. Find the one tool that you are comfortable enough to use and you know that can contribute to your productivity.
4. Throw away the bad habit of procrastination because it will do you no good. Always have the time to start a project and continue it until it has been satisfactorily finished.
5. Lastly, learn to take a break once in a while. While hard work is definitely rewarded, one should also relax especially if the work is already taking too much of his energy. It is important to have a relaxed body and mind to continue with the tasks. Only a healthy body can successfully finish a project.
You might often hear the question, “What is time management”? Most people have difficulty in understanding time management that they would need to ask someone for an answer. If you are also wondering what time management is, then here are some answers.
Time management is known as the different methods in which people would make use of their time effectively to make the most out of it. It can also be defined as the practices that people do to make better use of their time. In this definition, you can make use of any method and electronic devices that would provide help in time management.
Time management is seen on two different things: personal time management and time management in project management. In Project management, time management is also known as project scheduling or project planning. Time management is a subset of project management as defined in the book, “Guide to PMBOK”.
Personal time management is the most common form of time management. It seeks to schedule activities, goals and events of an individual. Anyone can make their own method of personal time management and make use of different gadgets and items to make the most of time. But there are common methods that one can use to manage time. Here are some:
Activity Logs
Activity logs are records that you make in order to see how you much time you spend on doing an activity. You are also required to take note of the other things you do as you do an activity. You can put something like chatting, drinking coffee, or any other things that you do while you accomplish your activity. After a few days, you can analyze your log. You can see how much time you might have wasted in order to do an activity. This now can tell you which things you should avoid doing as you do important activities and therefore, be able to save time.
Prioritized To-do Lists
To-do lists are quite popular nowadays. You can see to-do lists on mobile phones. The problem is, people do not know how to prioritize their to-do tasks. If you are to make better use of the to-do lists, you need to set priorities. Analyze which tasks are more important then the others and arrange the lists by importance. You should do the most important tasks first before the others.
Effective Scheduling
To-do lists and activity logs wouldn’t mean anything without effective scheduling. Scheduling is where you look at the available time and plan to do the tasks at hand. When making a schedule, it is important to understand that you should only plan to do what you can realistically do. Also, you must preserve contingency time to handle any unexpected events. You should also try avoiding too many commitments to others so that you can use the time more effectively.
Personal Goal Setting
Using personal time management would mean that something must be achieved. Normally, people wouldn’t use time management, but if there is something they want to achieve in the future, time management would prove to be essential. Personal goal setting is when you visualize of the goal. You see yourself in the future, where you have attained your goal. Seeing your goal would inspire and motivate you so that you can have the proper determination to achieve the goal.