Time Management
Aidan Matthews @aidanjrmatthews
Time management is the essence of Life Management. It allows for the utilisation of time for the maximum productivity and the successful completion of tasks and goals. Developing techniques for your time as a student means you can have a social life, stay healthy, eat food, work a job and study a whole degree all at the same time. People have better time management skills than believed, but quite often struggle with the self-discipline and succumb to temptations.
When managing your time, it is always important to have a direction or goal in mind. Working aimlessly not only decreases the efficiency of task completion but it can also lead to a more destructive issue, procrastination.
Procrastination is the enemy of productivity and works not only to make easy things hard but hard things harder. A notification sound, a quick scroll through Instagram, a quick check of the stock market or a bit of online shopping is all time that adds up. Time management doesn’t say don’t do the things you enjoy but rather, put off these distractions until the time is right! Rather than looking at memes on Facebook halfway through, wait until you have worked uninterrupted until the time you decide to stop and then enjoy those memes guiltlessly as a reward for your work.
Procrastination is the thief of time
– Edward Young
A technique implemented by many successful students, graduates, business people and entrepreneurs can be simplified to two simple words, be early. These two words as a goal can ensure that deadlines are never a matter of hours but days away. Completing tasks earlier not only allows for the removal of stress-induced with deadlines faced approaching, but also allows for time to be spent on more enjoyable things.
The creation of plans can be critical to success. As much as many of us wish that there were more than 24 hours in a day, successful time management can ensure that it is possible to make the most out of the hours available for study. The creation of daily, weekly, and semester-ly plans can allow for an understanding of the timeline which tasks are approaching. The creation of plans and self-discipline when sticking to them can ensure that you are able to live a healthy and efficient life with the best possibility of success.
Prioritising and completing the most challenging and daunting task. Often challenging, recognising what task you would like to do least and completing that first can ensure that you are less likely to allow procrastination mindset to affect your efficiency.
Time management is different for each individual. Time itself is terribly special and something that you can never have any more. Time management is such an important part of Life management and often critical
3 Idea takeaways
- Always work towards a goal and focus attention on one task at a time to ensure as high efficiency is possible.
- Procrastination only prolongs work that must be completed, by using a plan to hold yourself accountable and eliminating as many distractions as possible can allow for the best chance for success.
- Achieving tasks as early as possible will allow for tasks to be less stressful and attacking the hardest tasks first can give you more time when you have that completed.
