MY TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

Time management is the process of planning and owning your time. It is the ability to accurately apportion your time efficiently to various tasks during the day, thereby making sure that more tasks are completed in a shorter period of time.

Sincerely, this is not as easy as it seems. It’s not just planning your time but also having the discipline to follow through with the plans. In this case procrastinating is not an option, thus lies the problem. 

From experience, apart from external factors beyond our control, procrastination is the sharpest thorn in our flesh. Most people do not even realise they’re putting off their tasks until it’s too late, some would but would think that they can salvage the situation, but it doesn’t always end up that way. This in turn leads to a waste of time, underperformance, poor reputation, and most times more stress.

For you to effectively manage your time, discipline should be a watch word. Also, having a good strategy in place would help improve one’s time management. Below are five time management tips I’ve devised for myself;

• PRIORITISE AND HAVE AN EFFECTIVE SCHEDULE: In class we were taught how to prioritise based on importance and urgency using a matrix. So, I basically do a detailed schedule for the day and tag those that are Important and Urgent, Importance and not urgent, Not important but urgent, Not important and not urgent. I use these tags to plan my day and believe me this has helped me manage my work and school schedule effectively.

• PLANNING AHEAD: Every night I take a mental note of tasks that I couldn’t complete during the day and tasks that need to be done the following day. I then use this to plan my schedule. This helps me build up a proficient list for my schedules. On my calendar I already have recurring tasks inputted, so every night I just add the new ones and use that for my daily planning.

• HAVE A PARTNER OR A CHECKER: Most times even with the schedule and my best trial at discipline, I find myself slacking on some tasks. What I do is that I give my self little prices if I excel at managing my time and take away some privileges if I don’t. 

For example, currently we have our audit going on at the office, coupled with school and the blog, I told myself that if I’m able to finish my blogs by Saturday this week, I’ll go watch the Dumbledore movie that came out at the cinemas yesterday. Well fortunately, I’m grabbing this little win 😜.

• DO AWAY WITH DISTRACTIONS: Basically, I’ve identified that social media is a deterrent to managing my time properly, so, I regulated my use of it. I deleted some apps that were not really important or impactful and I turned off notifications from those I considered not really important but a necessity for easy communications. Curtailing my social apps use has helped maximize my use of time.

• Finally, I try to practice the 4 Ds which are: Do, Defer (delay), Delegate and Drop.

To me the strategies above are a life saver and I hope it also helps you to effectively manage your time.

#MMBA3 #Lillybeth’scorner