Have you ever experienced lack of sleep? Felt stressed and unhappy? I am sure you have, and I can tell you with certainty that poor time management skills can lead to all the above. The contemporary work environment is fast-paced, complicated and demands excellent time management skills.
But how would you define time management? To put it simply, time management is a skill which involves strategizing and managing your available time so that the right amount of time is assigned effectively to a specific task. Time management refers to making the best use of your time, as time is always limited.
Time management plays a very important role, not only in the workplace, but in our own, personal lives as well. Poor time management skills can lead to poor quality of work, poor working (and personal) relationships, missed deadlines, stress etc. It is clear why someone must therefore, hone their time management skills, and avoid those pitfalls.
Developing your time management skills will allow you to deliver work on time, reduce procrastinating, improve your quality of life, enjoy more opportunities for career growth and also allow you more time for rest, recreation and leisure.
Acknowledge the importance of time management skills and begin to consciously develop them to the best of your ability
Begin by creating a schedule – and Sticking to it!
You start by planning out your week. You won’t nail it the first time, but you will start getting a better understanding of your weekly schedule, and how you can allocate your time more efficiently to the various tasks you have on a weekly basis. It will be a continuous effort, and will take some time to get it right!
Determine your priorities
Find out what matters to you the most, and allocate the time you deem necessary to those tasks while creating the schedule. Be careful, don’t go overboard, and don’t overestimate the time you need for those tasks. Try to be as realistic as possible. As we said before, time is limited.
Outsource and delegate
If you feel that you need help, and you have the people to do it, delegate! Tasks that can be performed by others, let them have a go at it! You can try delegating to a Virtual Assistant. Virtual Assistants are people who can take care of various administrative tasks, for you, and are usually freelancing. It will free up some of your time and allow you to use it more efficiently on tasks which cannot be performed by others.
Begin right away to develop and hone your time management skills. As discussed, it will have a great, positive, impact on your work and personal life. Just spend some time to develop those techniques, and work on how to get better.
