By: A student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, as part of the Heather Nelson’s Service Learning class.
Before I discuss some tips about time management, it is important to understand what it is.
What is Time Management?
Time management is the act of balancing tasks and activities for efficient progress.
Time management is something that we all should proritize in doing in our everyday lives. Not just to be more organized but to be more productive, and getting things done in a well mattered way. Many of us struggle of not being able to focus and getting what needs to get done. In other words, getting our priorities straight. For example, you have an assignment that is due in a week and you wait last minute to complete it. Instead of complaining why you didn’t have time, you should be asking yourselves, “How can I make time for everything that needs to get done?”
Why is time management important?
Time management is very important because it can help you in different ways. Here are some ways why managing your time is essential:
- It can help you relieve stress.
- You can develop different kinds of skills like organizational skills.
- You become more focus and you prioritize more.
- You become distant from procrastination.
- You have more freedom in doing things you want.
- Less distractions
- Physical, spiritual, and mental growth.
Now that you learned more about time management here are some tips that helped me that will help you start managing your time (Some tips come from the CPI Team):
- Set Goals Correctly: Start by setting goals you want to make sure that they will be able to be measured. You don’t want to start something that you can’t finish.
- Prioritize Wisely: Make sure to decide what order of importance are each task. Do the most important first to the least important to the end. That way you do not need to worry about it later. Prioritizing wisely will help you boost your confidence, self-esteem, and your productivity overall.
- Set a time limit: Whether it’s school work, at your workplace, the gym, etc, setting a time limit may give you the mindset that you need to finish it no matter what at that specific time. Setting a time limit on a task may also keoo you away from distractions because your mind is stuck on a task that you set a time to get done.
- Taking breaks in between tasks: Allow yourself to take breaks to let your mind and body to relax. As someone who has struggled managing time, I learned that taking breaks can help my mind memorize material and reduce stress.
- Build or buy yourself a Planner/Calendar: Having a calendar and or a planner will help you stay organized, consistent and helps you stay up to date with your tasks and activities/events. For example, making lists can help you track your progress, it lets you know what you need to finish and what you have accomplished.
- Plan ahead: Make sure to prioritize recording your plan for that day. That way you have the idea what needs to get done.
- Depend on discipline, not motivation: Many people make the mistake on depending on motivation instead of discipline. For example, I might not want to go to the gym because I do not feel motivated or I do not have the strength to go because I am so tired. My goal was to get stronger and perhaps get leaner but I ended up staying home on my phone instead. In this case, I depended on my own emotions and not on discipline.
It is also important to understand that motivation is what gets the goal started but discipline is what makes that goal come true or gets to the accomplishment.
Overall it is important to be able to manage your time. It just makes our lives so much easier and better!
References
CFI Team. (2022, October 26). Time management. Corporate Finance Institute. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/time-management-list-tips/
#TimeManagementTips #OmahaSkillsConnection #BlogPost
Omaha Skills Connection is a 501c3 non-profit organization located in Omaha, Nebraska established as a result of the post pandemic era to help bridge the skills gap between education, technology and today’s workforce. Omaha needs an educated, flexible and dynamic workforce in today’s knowledge-based economy. OSC connects talent to opportunity, modernizing employee development for today’s workforce.