Not again! Nora cried. Seven hours had just slipped by and she hadn’t done anything significant. Every single day found Nora engaging in a lost battle with time. Many times, she had resolved to change for the better; written countless to-do lists but still didn’t achieved productivity. She realized in frustration that this has been a cycle in her life and desperately wanted to gain mastery of her time!
Are you like Nora? Do you want to be in control of your time? Then keep on reading.
Time is an invisible yet golden currency given by God to man in order to yield profitable results on earth. Interestingly, time is a currency that everybody has equally. No one has more time to themselves. However, time is your most precious resource that heavily determines your success in life.
Effective time management is the act of consciously taking few moments to think about your time before and after you’ve spent it in order to increase productivity. It is common knowledge that everybody has 24 hours each day which is 1440 minutes in a single day. Interestingly, successful people think about minutes in the value of time, that is, how they spend each minute is more precious to them than a stretch of hours. For example, research has it that it takes a minute to have a breakthrough idea.
Identifying your most important task and working at it in the early minutes of your day is a golden tip that has escaped the notice of many. According to a behavioral psychologist, we are at our best for about two hours windows of time in the morning. Therefore, instead of answering messages and emails and catching up on the news first thing after your breakfast, it has been advised to use that time to work on your most important task for that day.
Also, a large percentage of students struggling with time management actually do write to-do lists but still do not achieve productivity. According to statistics, 41% of items that people put on their to-do lists are never done at all. Surprisingly, a research study found out that successful people work from their calendars and not a to-do list. To gain control over your time at every minute of the day, do what’s important according to your calendar. And while you are it, say no to everything that doesn’t support your current goal at each minute of the day.
In summary, time management is not about engaging in a marathon of completing lots of tasks. It is not about doing a lot within a short period of time. In fact, research has it that most productive people take more breaks. Therefore, tasks are to be completed in sprints with deliberate time to rest in between these sprints. So, focus on your most important task while saying no to every other thing, get it done, take a break and begin another sprint. Doing all these will help you gain mastery of your time.
