If you answered YES to these questions, you are in a time squeeze. Either you have too much work for the available time, or you aren’t using your time effectively. In either case you have a time-management problem, and that problem will make your work life less fulfilling, less successful, and more stressful than it should be.<\/p>\n
Dinkar Rao, Ex-employee, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd says, “Time management skills are your abilities to recognise and solve personal time management problems. If you can manage your time well, you are in control of your time, your life and your stress and energy levels. You make progress at work and are able to maintain a good balance between work and your personal life. You have enough flexibility to respond to surprises or new opportunities.”<\/p>\n
Goal setting<\/strong><\/p>\n Goals are the starting point of effective time management. They act as a compass, pointing the way to the things on which you should be concentrating your time. Goal setting is a formal process of defining outcomes worth achieving.<\/p>\n By setting goals and measuring their achievement, you can –<\/p>\n >> focus on what is more important<\/p>\n >> provide a unified direction for your team<\/p>\n >> devote less energy to non-critical tasks >> avoid time wasters<\/p>\n >> motivate yourself<\/p>\n >> boost overall job satisfaction<\/p>\n Time-consuming elements<\/strong><\/p>\n When asked about her time-consuming factors, Richa Tripathi, student of Terna Engineering College, Nerul, says, “A lot of my time gets killed in travelling from home to college. Also, the online chat options like google talk, yahoo messenger and the daily web surfing take a lot of precious time out of my 24 hours.”<\/p>\n A lot of time is taken away during travel, and it’s important to make use of such time as productively as possible. For instance, certain calls can be made while travelling to college\/ work.<\/p>\n Scheduling tools<\/strong><\/p>\n After you have identified and prioritised all the tasks for which you are responsible, you need to deal with them systematically. The best approach is to use a schedule, a written commitment to accomplish tasks within a specific time. Dr AK Srivastava, Chief Geophysicist, ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) says, “A schedule allows you to visualise time resources and your plan for allocating them. You can see at a glance, time blocks in which you are committed or uncommitted. You can also estimate whether priority tasks are being crowded out by less important ones or not.”<\/p>\n Your scheduling tools should include the following<\/p>\n >> To-do lists<\/p>\n >> Appointment calendars<\/p>\n >> Daily and weekly planners<\/p>\n >> Scheduling software and hardware (for example Personal Digital Assistants)<\/p>\n Many organisations have calendar-scheduling software tools. These tools allow you to maintain your schedule on your personal computer and, if company PCs are networked, to view the calendar availability of your colleagues.<\/p>\n Decision to implementation<\/strong><\/p>\n Decision making skills are also a key component of time management. The difficult part is to pick one solution where the positive outcome can outweigh possible losses. The quicker you make your decision, the faster you can start implementing it. But this does not mean that you should take impulsive decisions. It’s necessary to take important decisions prudently. But once decided, put the decision into action. Transform your decision into specific plan of action steps. Then execute your plan.<\/p>\n Procrastination <\/strong> A basic definition of procrastination is putting off the things that you should be doing now. This happens with all of us time after time. Yet, what makes a big difference for your success is your ability to recognise procrastination reasons and expressions in their different forms, and to promptly take them under control, before it steals your opportunities, damages your career and pride, or destroys your relationships.<\/p>\n
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\nMany times we put off important tasks until later. In most situations, we get busy with many not so important activities, hoping to have more time and better mood in the future to start the task and do it properly. But this is not the right approach. Its important to take your time for important tasks but its equally essential to ensure it happens on time!<\/p>\n