Technology Toolkit

Time management is one of the skills needed for life. Hence, it is also termed as a life-skill. Right from the director of a company to a front-desk executive, time management plays a very important role. Managing time effectively brings order and discipline to our lives.

Time management, though is a life-skill, is a skill that needs to be learnt during the course of life. People are not born with this skill. As need arises, people learn this skills, most often, at times when things or situations start going out-of-hand. It is only in times like this that people realize the true value and potential of this skill.

Time management is not rocket science. It does not need a detailed study of your itinerary to see the time you have available and the time that you spend on various activities. Time management is a simple skill that teaches you how to practically schedule the time you have on hand so that you can properly plan and schedule your tasks and responsibilities accordingly. This skill teaches you to quickly analyze the time you have on hand and accordingly schedule your tasks for the day. It helps you make effective and efficient use of your time without over committing yourself, thus ensuring that you reach all the goals within a specific time period.

The first step in time management is to differentiate between “urgent” tasks and “important” tasks. Important tasks are those tasks that benefit you over a period of time and help you in attaining the goals you have set for yourself.

Urgent tasks are the tasks that you do for the benefit of others, which does not have a significant effect on helping you reach your goals. So which of these takes the upper hand? While deciding this, it is important to understand that not all “important” tasks are urgent and not all “urgent” tasks are important.

Effective time management help you focus and concentrate better on the task at hand. Let me explain how this is possible. It is human tendency to be confused when there is chaos and disorderly environment all around us. Time management brings in order and discipline to our lives which in turn helps us deliver 100% on every task. Rather than channelizing our mental energy in various directions, it helps us focus all our mental energy towards the task on hand thus improving our productivity and quality of work.

We perform a number of activities and execute various tasks during the course of our day. How many of us can account for what we did on a particular day? Maintaining records of what we do on a given day will help us understand for what, where and how we spend our time. This will give us an insight into the tasks we perform each day. This has been a revelation since it brings out the unimportant tasks that we focus on, thus, leaving back many other important tasks which are needed to help us reach our goals. The process of documenting daily activities will also help decide on what changes are needs and how they can be brought about.

To summarize, time management follows the age-old rule of “do the most important thing first”. Always prioritize your “important” tasks over “unimportant” tasks.