Have you ever wished you had more than 24hrs in a day?
I have! Some people request for more time to sleep, work, eat, play, study…So let me ask you “why you are requesting for more time?”
To be honest with you, you don’t necessarily need more time, all you need is to know how to manage the time you already have. By “manage” I mean using your time in the best way that suits you. It is important to note that you can never manage time, you can only manage the use of time available to you.
It is important to manage your time because, you are all that you are right now because of the things you gave your time to…read that again. You are this good in your career, business, at speaking, playing football games, cooking, etc. because you gave your time to it.
Time is a resource that is common to all.
The major reason we have to manage our time is because, we have several things that call for our time and time is a limited resource. There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important things.
I bet you don’t manage the oxygen you breathe in and out because, you have it in abundance.
• Do you never have enough time to accomplish all that you have proposed?
• Are you always overwhelmed by all you have to do?
• Do you procrastinate very often?
I had a speaking engagement on this subject and I believe you will find it very helpful, hence the reason i’m sharing this with you.
Gaining mastery over how you manage your time is a process. Over time, you will build capacity to manage your time till it becomes your way of life.
We have so many activities running through the days, weeks, months and years. Sometimes, you look back to say to yourself “it’s 2 years already” how can I account for this time I spent in the past 2 years.
You have to learn that it is more important to make time count than to count the time, I will say it again “it is more important to make time count than to count the time.
Setting Priorities is the Hub of Time Management
I hear a lot of people say that, I couldn’t do this and that because I didn’t have enough time. Let me tell you this, everybody has time, but they give their time to what is of priority over what they claimed not to have time for. What you give your time to shows what you live for or shows what you attach importance to. You have to be intentional about managing your time. No one is going to manage your time in your best interest, but rather they will manage your time to suit themselves.
So first things first, you need to have a meeting with yourself, write an exhaustive list of everything you do and other things you would love to do but you haven’t been able to provide the time for, it might be over 100 and it might be less than 10.
Then start to rearrange it in the order of priority — The item on the list with the highest priority should be on top and follow that order all the way down to the item with the lowest priority.
Having done this, you will observe that you might have been giving more of your time to activities of lower priority. This is the main reason why you can’t really account for your time.
EVERYTHING CANNOT BE IMPORTANT, IF EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT, THEN NOTHING IS IMPORTANT
Let me paint a scenario of how you have been cheating yourself when you fail to give your time to things of higher priority:
You run a Dry Cleaning Business and you have a niche of high paying customers who request for a new service (They might want you to start running an indoor cleaning service like cleaning their carpets) and you have some low paying customers who request that you change your location to suit them. You then you go ahead to change your location only without considering the request of the high paying customer. I believe you will agree with me that it does not make any business sense. This scenario reflects what you do when you give more of your time to things of lower priority.
So if my list looks like this (I will just generalize, you can be more detailed):
1. Spirituality
2. Health
3. Family
4. Impact
5. Finances
6. Career
So on my list spirituality comes first, my health (taking care of myself which includes eating well, sleeping well…) comes second and all the way down to the sixth.
My priority is peculiar to me and yours is peculiar to you.
We all don’t have the same priority, hence we can’t really judge others based on our own perception of time mismanagement. This is because your definition of priority differs from theirs. It’s also possible for your priority to change at different stages of your life, so it can be reviewed.
So when I plan my year, month, week or day, the things I listed above take priority over the other. I am up by 2am this morning writing this article because, it’s the first on my list of the things i have to do today.
Your priority scale should be set in your mind not just in your head because if it’s in your mind, it will program you to respond subconsciously to the different things that call for your time.
Learn to say NO
You are the boss! Yes, you are!
You are responsible for the decisions you make about what takes your time. You tell your time where it should go and where it shouldn’t.
People find it a bit difficult to say “No” to other people on request for their time, I can relate to that because I have a hard time saying no, but I still say it anyway. Since you are the one who sets the priority, then you should be able to communicate that to others who come for your time…So, I don’t mean you should be rude and selfish.
You should learn to turn down requests that don’t align with your priority because, if you keep accepting every one of them, you will discover you lived for them and not for yourself.
The Art of Simplicity in Time Management
One of the 12 principles of Agile is “Simplicity — the art of maximizing the work not done — is essential”
Simplicity helps you achieve a lot because, you have learnt to consume things in their smallest form. A lot of people are stressed because they either think everything is important or because they are trying to take on more than they can handle. You don’t need to have 10 things to do in a day, you can have 3 valuable things to do and that is perfectly okay.
You don’t always have to be “too busy” that you are engaged and pressured with deadlines. Don’t over commit yourself to unreasonable timelines. It burdens you and makes you feel bad about yourself for not meeting up.
It’s okay for you to schedule 2hrs to do something you forecast should be for 1hr, this is not because you want to waste time but because you want to give yourself the allowance to perform each activity excellently and be happy with yourself rather than jumping out of each activity.
Simplicity helps you to focus, which in turn imparts on your results.
The Eisenhower Decision Matrix
In conclusion, i will like to share this framework with you. The Eisenhower Decision Matrix will help you with prioritizing activities. It helps you beat down the stress of a high workload. Eisenhower’s Principle helps you find where you are — your urgent and important activities. These are the two kind of problems, where the urgent are not important and the important is never urgent.
There are things that you should DO, SCHEDULE, DELEGATE AND ELIMINATE.
After writing an exhaustive list of the things you have to do, you can then draw the Eisenhower decision matrix and start moving it into their respective segments based on your judgment.
You have enough time to be and do all that you should do. Learn to prioritize, learn to say “No” and learn to keep things simple.
It will be great for you to tell somebody about your take away from this article.
Cheers!
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