My
life at this moment is very busy. I can’t
afford to waste time, because if I do, I will fall behind. Between taking care of my family, spending
time at work, doing work for my master’s degree and volunteering time at my
church, I don’t get a lot of extra time.
If I do, it is spent goofing around with my 14 month old son. The only way I can sanely balance all these
things, is by having good time management skills. It is a necessity in life to be able to
balance all of these things, otherwise, I would probably have a nervous
breakdown.
I remember when I was younger, I could come
home from school and kill a few hours playing video games, play with friends
and then get my homework done at night.
As an adult, time seems to fly by much faster leaving me with very
little leisure time.
The
text talks about a few approaches when assessing time management. First off, it states “individuals spend their
time on important matters, not just urgent matters” (Whetten &
Cameron, 2011, p. 121) .
I need to be able to plan out the things I need to do in a day, week,
month and year. When I look at these
different things, I can look and see what I need to get done ahead of
time. It can keep me ahead of the game,
so I don’t get blindsided by something unexpected, or realize last minute I let
something slip. When taking this
approach, I can look at important things that need to get done and accomplish
them in a timely manner.
The next approach the book discusses is “results
rather than methods are the focus of time management strategies” (Whetten & Cameron, 2011, p. 121) . When focusing on managing my time, I am
focusing on being able to get things done, not the process. I need to make sure that I am managing my
time to produce a desired result. In
some cases, methods may fall into how time management is played out; however,
it is important to first make sure I can organize my day, so that I am able to
get the most important things done first.
Another focus of time management as the text points out is “people have
a reason not to feel guilty when they must say no” (Whetten &
Cameron, 2011) . Because I like to be able to help people out
when they need it, I hate having to tell people no. I have learned though, that saying yes this
is not always a good idea. I need to be
able to tell them no when it gets in the way of more important things. However, I shouldn’t always say no; I should
be able to judge when it is appropriate to turn someone down or agree to help. Sometimes going that extra mile will help you
in the long run, and that person may come to your aid when you need it.
My
days are very structured for the most part.
I spend at least an hour in the morning working out. After this I go to work for the next nine or
so hours. I then come home for dinner
and spend time with my wife and child.
He generally goes to bed around 7:30 or so at night and I immediately
spend the next couple of hours working on home.
After this, we go to bed and the next day I get up a do it all over
again. This is my daily time management
schedule.
Each day at work, I also have ways of managing
my time. I list out the things I need to
get done over a period of time, and work on the most important and urgent items
first. When I get done with those, I
focus on the items that are important, but not immediate. After those, I focus on the less urgent and
less important items. Because my job at
the moment is very busy, I rarely get to the last set of items. Scheduling my work days out in this manner
enables me to have a strong internal locus of control. I feel that I have a great deal of control
over what happens in my life. When
things go wrong, I know it is my own fault and I can fix it. When things go right, I know it is because I
was prepared and was able to get the things done I needed to, to make it
happen.
The
book talks about a number of techniques I can apply to my own life for furthering
my ability to effectively use my time more wisely. I would like to create an action plan that
would help me with time management by applying a number of these
techniques. The first technique I can
apply is “have a place for everything and keep everything in its place” (Whetten & Cameron, 2011, p. 125) . I am not the most organized person. Because of this it can sometimes make it
difficult to keep track of all the things I need to do. In order to improve on this skill I have
created several folders using Microsoft OneNote. This program is incredibly useful since it
enables me to create order out of chaos.
I can jot items down really fast that I need to remember for later and
move them around visually to keep the organized. I will also color code the text from most important
to least. The most important being red,
the next being yellow and the last being green.
This method enables me to keep track of items I need to get done very
easily and efficiently while prioritizing my tasks.
The second technique I will apply is to “do
one important thing at a time but several trivial things simultaneously” (Whetten & Cameron, 2011, p. 125) . I tend
to be a little scatterbrained, so improving on my ability to focus will help me
to manage my time better. When there are trivial things though I know that
those can be done when I’m struggling with my focus.
A third technique I will integrate into my
action plan is to set deadlines. The
text states, “work always expands to fill the time available, so if you don’t
specify a termination time, tasks tend to continue longer than they need to” (Whetten & Cameron, 2011, p. 126) . Setting deadlines will help me to focus on
things I need to get done and waste less time on trivial matters. When I have a large project I will set self-imposed
deadlines to get things done over the period of the project. This way I can make sure I have enough time
to get everything done before the final project is due. I also find that when I set these deadlines,
it’s like achieving small victories that invoke a sense of accomplishment with
each one.
The
fourth thing, is to avoid procrastination.
I have found that a busy person’s worst enemy is procrastination. Allowing procrastination to creep into my
life will only make things pile up and become unmanageable. Managing my time and getting things done
early will not only help me to avoid procrastination, but will also allow me to
turn in better work. When I am rushed
and need to get a lot of things done, the quality of the work will suffer
significantly. I find that when I am at
work the hours between 9:00 and 10:00 in the morning and 1:00 to 2:00 in the
afternoon are the least busy. If I can
use those two hours to really focus I will be able to get a lot of things
done.
The
final technique I will apply to my action plan is to reach closure on at least
one thing every day. It is amazing how
much less stress you feel when you can mark something as being completely
finished every single day. Whether these
items are big or small does not matter.
If you can mark at least one thing done at the end of each day, it will
do a lot to relieve a significant amount of stress.
By
applying these techniques to my daily routing, and working to improve on my organization,
ability to focus, and desire to accomplish at least one thing every day, I feel
that I will see a dramatic change to my stress levels, and hopefully improve on
my quality of work. Time management can
be difficult master, but when I can get a good grasp on what it means to manage
time both effectively and efficiently, I feel that my days will go much more
smoothly. I hope by doing this, I will
have a lot more free time to spend on the things I want to do rather than just
what I have to do.
References
Whetten, D. A., & Cameron, K. S. (2011). Developing
Management Skills. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
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