Time Management Essay

Are you running out of time? Are you wasting your time? Do you feel like you are unable to use your time to yield maximum output? The word 'Time' might seem like a simple four-letter minuscule word but it is something more complex and complicated than it seems. Average human life expectancy is around 72 years according to UNITED NATIONS, 72 years is an insignificantly small number so it is important for us to acknowledge that time management is very predominant.

Time is something of incalculable worth, it is like a precious gift to us.

What exactly is Time Management?

It is the procedure of organizing and arranging your work and sleep in order to save maximum time. Time management is a useful tool to increase efficiency, productivity, work rate, and capacity. Every person on this earth gets the same amount of time which is 24 hours in a day, but how come everyone is not productive? The simple answer is Time management. All the high flyers have one thing in common, they all manage their time exceptionally well. Every single person on this earth has the potential to manage their time and yield the maximal output out of a day. Time is very limited and someone appositely said: "Time and Tide wait for none". Time management skills are not only used by individuals, but also by MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES. It plays a foremost character not only in professional but also in personal life.

Now let us look at the benefits of time management.

Benefits of Time Management:

1. Time management makes a person organized:

For the good management of time, people prefer to keep their workplaces and study zones organized, neat, and clean. People learn to be more arranged and organized as a result of time management.

2. It makes a person more expeditious:

To make sufficient use of time, people try to be more effective and expeditious, individuals make a 'TO-DO' list at the beginning of the day in a sequence of their importance. This type of plan gives individuals a sense of direction during the whole day.

3. It boosts confidence/morale of a person:

As a result of time management, individuals complete the task within minimal time which gives them more confidence to move forward in life and achieve their goals. When a person completes his/her work in a stipulated time frame is looked up to by others and is always the focal point of attraction everywhere.

4. Time management can make us prosperous and successful:

Time management can take us to the pinnacle of success and give us wealth. Better time management results in effective work which in turn gives us recognition and respect at our workplace.

5. Time management is a stress reliever:

It is always seen that pending work increases our stress and anxiety but by using time management skills we can complete our work in a short period of time and get rid of stress/anxiety in our professional or personal life. Time management helps us to map out our ambition in life.

Time Management Skills:

1. TO-DO list:

It is one of the most effective and productive skills. We should jot down the important work during the inception of a day in a sequence of their urgency and then try to complete each work in that list.

2. Prioritise:

It is crucial for a person to know what work to prioritize first. High-priority work must be written on the top of the 'TO-DO' list followed by the work which is less important.

One should set goals and prioritize them. Further, these goals should be broken down into smaller tasks because it is easy to assign priority to individual tasks, we may also set deadlines for them which will make it easier to prioritize them. Various methods are followed to prioritize:

1. ABCD analysis: This type of technique is already in use in business companies, this technique helps in categorizing a large amount of data into groups:
   • A- This includes tasks that are most urgent and important.
   • B- This includes tasks that are important but not urgent.
   • C- This includes tasks that are not very important but are urgent.
   • D- This includes tasks that are neither urgent nor important.
2. The Eisenhower Method: D Eisenhower gave the quote "I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important and important ones are never urgent." Based on his quotes Eisenhower's method was invented, and it is based on the principle of urgency and importance. In this method, tasks are first evaluated using the criteria like urgent and not urgent, important and not important. Then these tasks are kept in quadrants. Quadrants are like:
   • Tasks that are placed in the first quadrant which are important/ urgent are completed immediately. Ex- deadlines etc.
   • Next are tasks that are not urgent but important, we give an end date to them and complete them accordingly. Ex- Relationships.
   • The third quadrant represents tasks that are not important but urgent, examples of which are friendly meetings, interruptions, etc.
   • At the end is the Fourth quadrant, which has activities that are neither important nor urgent. So, they are dropped.

3. Set achievable targets:

We should set a target that is realistic, each person knows his capability and capacity, and one should not overburden himself/herself, as it can result in stress and dwindle our productivity.

4. Set timer:

To keep track of time one should inculcate the habit of setting a timer for a more efficacious and fruitful day. It helps to enhance our productivity by being more concentrated and completing a task within the given time frame.

5. Do include time for leisure activities:

Many studies show that working for too long makes our brain stagnate however if a person takes frequent breaks during his/her work time becomes more productive and effective. During these breaks, we should socialize more, perform some physical activity and attend some personal calls.

6. Elimination of non-priorities:

To complete our tasks more efficiently, along with hard work one should also focus on smart work which can be done by eliminating things that are not a priority and can be dropped. Many people waste their time on unimportant things, which is a bad idea. We all know living in a cocoon is way easier than facing the real world, everybody loves to be in their safe zone which makes it impossible to eliminate the things which are not important. In order to do this one should divide their tasks into different groups. Learn about different methods which help in increasing our productivity.

Cultural views on Time Management:

Due to the differences in culture of different countries, their definition of time is different too as are their time management skills. If you take the example of America with most Northern European countries such as Germany, Switzerland end England, they follow the linear perception of time which means conceiving time as flowing from one moment to the next in a linear fashion. These cultures avoid wasting their time and they place a large value on productive time management. Linear perception of time correlates with being more "monochronic" which basically means doing one thing at one time. In general, if we follow these types of ideologies, it will help us to maintain more focus for a longer duration of time which will lead to productive time management.

Other than this, there's this other culture too which follows a "polychronic" or multi-active time view which means doing multiple things at one time, most southern European countries like Spain, Portugal, and Italy follow these ideas. The main purpose of following this is it brings happiness as you can complete more tasks in less time. These countries believe in synergy, they choose creativity over efficiency.

The last kind of culture is the "cyclical view" of time. In these types of cultures, time is neither considered linear nor related. As we all know days, months, years, and different environmental seasons take place in a cyclic manner i.e., they keep repeating themselves regularly like a cycle. In these types of cultures, time is not wasted because it will always come back later, hence they think they have an unlimited amount of time. These theories can basically be found in Asian countries like Japan, China, etc. They take time before actually doing the work, they think about the decisions and the impact they will have before implementing them.