Time Management

Managing time is an important skill required to complete tasks and activities without feeling too overwhelmed or stressed. This skill can be used in any aspect of life, whether it is used to manage your personal life, or used in the workplace. If you have poor time management skills, it is never too late to learn the skills necessary to improve this aspect of your life. With prioritization, effective goal-setting and avoiding procrastination, you can learn to manage with ease.

Prioritizing is an effective tool that can be used to help avoid wasting time. “You can only manage yourself in relation to time. You cannot choose whether to spend it, but only how to spend it. Once you waste time, it cannot be replaced.” (Dobson, A., 2008, p. 3) Therefore, it is important to avoid hoping from one task to another without completion, as this would be wasting time. You want to make sure the most important task is attempted first to ensure it gets completed. Prioritizing is a lot like making a “to-do” list. Write down what is the most important task for that day and go on from there. Often, deciding which task should come first is the most difficult part to making a prioritized list, however this is imperative to effectively manage your time.

“Ask some truly successful people what accounts for their achievements and you’ll often hear this answer: goals. Effective goal-setting takes time, but in the long run, it’s actually one of the most effective time-saving strategies you can pursue.” (Mancini, M., 2007, p. 58) This is why you should always take time to really analyze what it is you are working towards. First, you can figure out what your “big-picture” goal is, which usually refers to your life and where you want to go with it. Then, from here you can break up this large goal into smaller goals which you can achieve to work towards the long-term goal. Once you have your goals decided, you can always go back and change them as you face different