TIME
MANAGEMENT
Review and Access Your Activities
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Document your goals and examine your daily activities to
see if your activities are in line with the goals or not.
Normally, we are used to our daily routine activities that
may not have any relation to the goals and sometime these
are against the main objectives.
Usually,
our activities consist of reading newspapers, watching programmes
without any plan, after prayers standing outside the Masjid
and talking to friends without any objective, spending long
time on telephone calls, visiting someone without prior
appointment, etc. In these activities we waste a considerable
amount of our time that has no or little relation to our
main goals that we want to achieve.
It is imperative that we must control our time and recognize
those activities that waste our time. Most of us think that
they know how to spend time effectively. In reality we do
not know because we are not aware how much time is spent
on each activity. In order to assess our situation, each
one of us should keep a record of all the activities for
next 16 days. Any activity that requires more than 15 minutes
should be recorded. At the end of the period, review all
the activities and make an assessment about:
a. Have you spent the time on the right items that will
help in meeting your main objectives/goals?
b. Examine on which issues you have spent more time than
necessary and identify the issues that require more attention.
c. Estimate the time wasted on unnecessary items.
c. When you will review your daily activity list, you will
be astonished to find out that how wrong you were about
yourself. Now you know where and on what items time is wasted.
Therefore,
make the necessary changes. In order to do proper changes
to your time management you must perform the planning function
correctly.
PLANNING
It is always difficult to make a decision that which items
are REALLY important. Once you have made the decision about
the PRIORITIES then you must concentrate on them rather
than distracted towards unimportant issues. It is human
nature to lean towards easy tasks and try to finish them
and leave the difficult jobs for the future. This way we
keep on delaying the important activities. The main reason
for this delay process is due to the lack of PLANNING.
You
must have heard some people saying “I am too busy
and I have too much work to do. Therefore, I do NOT have
time for planning." Usually, we do accept this illogical
answer. On the other hand would you accept this statement
from a sick / ill person “I am too sick and too weak.
Therefore, do not take me to a hospital." In this case,
you will carry the person quickly to the nearest hospital
for immediate treatment.
Similarly,
in future if someone tells you that he/she is too busy to
do planning then you should immediately register him/her
to the next available time management seminar. Usually,
most of us do not make firm plans regarding time management.
Instead they carry out the activities one after the other
without much consideration about the priority or importance.
It is important to note that itself does not do work. It
needs to be done by you.
Work
done in a planned way is always more organized, thorough
and of high quality. Everyone accepts that planning is necessary.
But very few people give time for planning. It is imperative
to dedicate the necessary time for planning. In reality,
planning should be a habit. People who do planning regularly
- have no problem in finding more time to do more things.
It is a well-known management principle that if you want
something to be done quickly then give it to the busiest
person because he manages his time better and performs the
planning function effectively.
It takes only 15 minutes to prepare a daily plan and 30
minutes for a weekly plan. If you prepare daily and weekly
plan for just 6 weeks then you will become a habitual planner.
The best approach for the preparation of these plans is
to prepare the weekly plan on the last working day of the
week (Wednesday) and the daily plan (for the next day) just
before leaving for home. Your weekly plan must include the
followings:
a. Identify which goals need to be worked on.
b. State clearly what activities have to be performed to
achieve the above goals.
c. Assign priority to each activity.
d. Determine how much time should be spent on each activity.
e. Assign which activity should be done on which day of
the week.
f. Once you made your weekly plan, now you can prepare your
daily plan by assigning each activity a specific time. This
is also a very important task. You should know which item
to do at what time and why.