Acclaimed author Stephen Covey told us that one of the seven habits of highly effective people is the ability to manage time correctly. No wonder there are so many misconceptions associated with time management as we all tend to look at the problem from different points of view. Here are some of the myths that we hear regularly, associated with time management:
1. The assumption that “plenty of time” is available and you can put something off indefinitely. This is never acceptable, as every block of time is equally valuable to you. If you have something to do and are assuming that you will have “plenty of time” left for this later, you may be forgetting to heed the requirements of “Murphy’s Law.” Always get something out of the way, if you have it scheduled.
2. Believing you can’t handle everything that you have to do. How is it that some people appear to breeze through everything that they have to complete, but that you have way too much “on your plate?” The answer is that you are not prioritising correctly and must organise your time much more efficiently. Everything will fit in.
3. Concluding that as you are so busy, you must reallocate tasks to a time in future. We all tend to live in the “here and now” and as such tend to subconsciously place additional value on the time at this very moment. In truth, each block of time available to you is of equal importance and you need to stop procrastinating.
4. Believing that we don’t have to do something now, as it is not important. Time management requires us to come up with a plan and to stick to it. Often, tasks may appear to be really trivial, but once your mind focuses on them, each task should be tackled and ticked off as you complete them, when such tasks are part of your scheduled and prepared plans for the day. Unless you do this, you just cannot be ultimately efficient.
5. Believing that it is impossible to reschedule. This is not true either, as there will, from time to time, be reasons why you should reschedule. An external event of some kind or additional information may come onto the radar screen and this may necessitate a reassessment of the project you are working on, while you get additional information to help you, or otherwise. You can always reschedule, but not if you’re just procrastinating, believing that it’s not as important to finish this task as you originally thought, and so on.
As such, online time management tools can focus your approach to achieving your time management goals. The highly effective people that we hear about are using time tracking software to ensure that they are “on point.” You will hear many myths on this subject to confuse you and should discount them. In our modern society, time management software will show you how efficient you are being in your daily life. When Covey talked about those highly effective people, remember that the key word was “highly.” Don’t do anything by halves, and certainly don’t do it with the management of your time.
In one way or the other, we’re all used to working with a limited set of resources. For most of us, our most restricted resource appears to be money and one way or the other, through a process of experience or through the school of hard knocks; we all learn to live within our means on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Everything we do seems to have a financial value attached to it unfortunately, and we determine whether individual items, products or services are of interest largely according to the resources that we would have to spend to enable us to “afford it.” It is ironic that we live our lives as such, because we then overlook and risk wasting an even more valuable resource and one that we don’t apply any value calculation to necessarily – time. Sometimes our work or career requirements dictate that we have to be productive and adhere to strict time measurements, but it is true that we could all benefit from adhering to these kinds of standards at almost any time and really try and understand what time management actually represents.
Pause for a moment to think of the benefits of time management. For a moment, eliminate your work environment and just focus on the remainder of your time. You may think that you work far too much and that you have little time to spend on anything outside of your career, but if you do a simple calculation, the average person has at least one third of their available time to focus on, outside of sleeping and working periods. Imagine what you could do if you applied some of the principles of effective time management to the eight hours or so during every working day that you have available in this way? Don’t forget, that you have days off to factor in, as well.
These days, time management software is becoming very popular as people try and make the most of the time that they have. This type of time tracking software has emerged in answer to the age-old request – how can I find the time to do that?
You may want a career change but feel that you are not sufficiently qualified. One option you might have is to undertake an educational course of some kind, either through distance learning or maybe by attending evening classes. Of course, you don’t have time for that. However, online time management programs could first of all help you to see where your time is being spent and then help you to find the available resources, to go forward with your education and better your prospects.
Once you have learned the benefits of effective time management and understand what you need to do to be more punctual, focused, attentive and productive, then a whole new world of opportunities will open up to you and make you wonder how you managed over all these years by being so inefficient. Financial resources tend to restrict us all and one way forward for you could be through regular application of online time management tools, so that you really get value out of the time that you do have.
If you have a time management problem - and let’s face it most of us do, at least you have recognised the situation to start off with. You need to develop skills in this area and by and large this means that you’ll have to identify, recognise and solve your individual time management issues. Ineffectual use of your time means that you are not in control of your life and as such you will not be able to achieve your treasured goals.
You can learn time management skills. They are not inherent within us and we are not born with the ability to use time wisely, unfortunately. While it is certainly true that time management skills and techniques all revolve around common sense, many different techniques are available in different situations and you have to make appropriate choices if your overall goal is to be highly effective.
One of the more important time management techniques that you’ll ever master is decision-making. The most successful people in our society are all effective decision-makers. To be able to do this, you need to recognise every important element, be in possession of all the information you need, look at the alternatives and then make a firm and qualified decision. Often, our inability to make decisions is down to poor information gathering or may even be due to an incorrect assessment of the situation that requires a decision in the first place. Clearly define the issue, and if you have more than one issue rolled up into one problem, delineate and then make individual decisions accordingly.
The logistician is charged with the responsibility of applying sometimes complex decisions and processes to achieve a goal or a set of goals. Assume the role of the logistician, as you look at each situation from all angles. This will require you to assess each question from the point of view of a “yes or no,” or in technical terms if you like, a zero or a one! This is not to say that you should behave as if you were a computer processor, but try and focus on narrowing down your choices, and keep in mind that this process will certainly make decision time a lot easier.
Once you’ve determined the consequences, eliminated doubt and made a firm decision, then you are ready to take action steps. Through a process of decision making you will be able to successfully manage your time and be a much more productive individual.
Over the course of time, the art and science of decision making will become a valuable asset to you and you will become quite adept and intuitive. Put a lot of effort into your time management skill acquisition, using time tracking software and online time management, and this will allow you to become more accomplished by adding even more to your ability as an effective time manager in the future. These days, time management software is the natural choice if you are adamant about improving your productivity. You don’t have to rely on charts and spreadsheets, stopwatches and other distractions, as the software itself will help you to save some of this valuable time.
If you work in an environment where you have to account for every minute of the day, then you will undoubtedly be well aware of how important it is to be efficient. Many small-business consultants and professionals work on the basis of billable hours, where they have to provide a certain set of services to a client and record the amount of time that is spent. We categorise this according to the amount of time that we spend brainstorming or researching, or devoting to an issue that may be billed at a set rate, or even by reference to the physical amount of time needed to perform a task.
In all cases, when calculating a client’s bill according to the passage of time, time management and measurement is very important. As human beings, we are not born with the ability to measure time naturally and must take time to understand and practice this art. We often get sidetracked by a variety of external things and as our lives are so dimensional and complex, distractions abound. During all our waking hours our minds are “working overtime,” thinking and planning what we have to do at some future stage of our lives. It is far from easy for us to focus on being truly efficient due to all these complex thought processes and little wonder that we have to rely on time management software sometimes to help us fully understand what time management is all about.
Throughout each of our working days, a large number of non-billable tasks take up our time and often our actions can simply be said to be wasteful. Some of us have a carefree attitude and quite frankly hate being told what we should be doing, but nevertheless you must categorise and prioritise if your income relies on billable hours.
Avoid unnecessary non-billable calls on your time. So many things could be classified as “optional,” but you should discard these elements if they take away from your billable time. Be careful when categorising requests on your time, as if they have anything to do with employee building relationships, or valuable client events, even though they may be “non-billable,” such events or meetings could be very important indeed. You never know when something very valuable could develop from these events in the future.
You would be quite amazed if you used time tracking software to see how much more efficient you could become as a consequence of using this valuable asset. Focus on each box of time and you will be able to see whether you have used that time efficiently or not. Once you find that you have been inefficient, don’t make the same mistake again - as that would be almost criminal!
If you are consistent in your use of online time management tools, additional time will be freed up for more billable work. The software gives you an audible and visual cue and when it is time for you to move to the next task, you should never ignore this. If you find that you have not completed the task in question, make additional time for it later on - and once again, make sure you do not make the same mistake in future.