4. Time Manage-men-t
Far most the toughest and the most easiest when put to action. There are 4 categories of people in the world
- Who knows and wants to Manage their time and they do.
- Who know and wants to manage their time, but unable to.
- Who know and wants to manage their time, but takes no action.
- Who don’t know that they need time management
The first Category can ignore this article, and the 4th can tend to ignore the article if wants to, but the 2nd and 3rd do read it.
The only thing in the world that you don’t have control or can’t control is the time. If gone its gone forever and there is no running back for it. And, the things that can’t be brought back or is limited has to be managed. Keeping the philosophical aspect aside, let us focus on practical side.
I personally fell in 4th Category, and then I rose up to 3rd and then to 2nd, but the journey was bit struggling from 3rd to 2nd, and from 2nd to 1st was difficult, but later on got easiest.. The recipe for good biryani is below…. :P
Being an avid reader, went through various books, various articles, videos etc on time Management. It use to work for few days and again I use to be at square 1, where I started, it got quite confusing and boring. Then I started observing and approached various people of in my views managed their time well. Whatever they said and read or ever wrote, only 6 words stood apart, So no thesis it makes thing complicated, only 6 simple activites.
Step 1 :- Plan and Organise your Day :- Before start of the day, write all the things that you suppose to do, not on the basis of its importance or urgency wise, as in Seven Highly effective habit but as per time wise, like 10 – am to 11 am, I will be doing XYZ activity, 11.15 – 12 pm will do PQRS activity, or I will start abc work at 4 pm. Once you place the activity on place holder, make sure that you have all the data information, required tools to start and complete the task. If not then first organize the pre requisite for the task to be completed. Simple right we can do it.
Step 2 :- PIN Hold 3 activities of the day ;- This simply means, identify or put atleast one activity in your daily schedule which will not be moved as per your convenience on timeline, no matter what, but will be glued to the timeline. Just like Have to hit the gym st 8 PM, or Have to go for a cup of tea at sharp 4 every day or have to visit temple at 7 pm. It can be anything but yes constant and non-movable item on timeline. This activity become the anchor and all the activity will automatically start falling in place and moving around it, keeping a check on your other activities getting completed on time. This the most important one, If you don’t do this then entire time line will start shifting towards right or left depending upon the time you start your work, and again you will be in a mess. This one too simple, as You are deciding and fixing time for Tea, Gym and temple
Step 3 :- Uniformity and Standardization :- Try to make things automated, uniform templates, uniform structures, by doing this things you saves time on making templates and makes things easy, as you have to just pout the things in to the bucket. I have seen the people doing same thing again and again, when things can be made simple by just automating the process or standardizing the templates. Deciding the place for everything helps you and your brain to figure it out easily as what they have to do and look for and keep the data ready. Just like fix template for your Monthly dash board, Marketing flyers, Mail Merge on excel for the different letters and communication you make.
Step 4 :- Decide time of for every task : - Allocate the time for the all the task, the things or task that requires 20 min should take 20 mins, or 10 more minutes extra, do not put extra time, its of no use, the things that you can do with saved time is enormous, utilize for yourself, for your long forgotten dream, or just to check some beautiful faces, or to complete your banking transaction. You will find that you are left with enormous time in hand
Step 5 :- Punctuality :- Try to be on time, 5- 10 minutes here and there is OK but not 20 minutes, when a 20 minutes delay will become a 1 hour delay, you will not come to know. I have know few friends and colleagues, who will give you wrong information and will not come on time. But doing so they are just giving their brain a wrong stimulus and signal that its fine to get delayed, and now it has become habit for them. You can’t control them., what you can do Is respect your time and move once you complete your time allocated for them. Your time is yours, not theirs, they might be completing the task or putting their time to best use, keeping you await, but you have wasted your time that you might have used for some other things, But next time do tell them to inform about change in the schedule. One who do not respect your time, 100% they do not respect your attendance too.
Step 6 :- Multitasking :- Without doing the multi-tasking you won’t be able to manage the time, you cant do one thing at a time and complete all the task. If you are able to do so , then I am sure that you don’t have enough on your plate. Observe your Mom, she does multitasking, while making rice, she prepares the required ingredients for curry, Or if she is washing the cloth, she has put some thing on gas that won’t requires he much assistance, like cooking rice, and many more. This too simple
Yes, sometime due to work pressure and some urgent professional commitment your time line will go for a toss for a day or 2 , or say for a week or for 15 days. It happens with me too, but the next day again I start with same approach. If that day also goes for toss, the next day I start with same approach, the thing is that do not move away from your game plan. 15 well managed days of 30 monthly days are still better than “0 day”.
Try it and do let me know…..