How to manage time effectively

Everyone gets the same 24 hours a day, but everyone’s time is different. Someone, in an hour, can sign a contract which is worth millions of dollars. Meanwhile, someone spends their entire lives putting their hearts and minds in a particular work but only earns 10.000 dong per hour only. How much is your worth? Do you know that you have 84,600 seconds of your time-fund every day? Day by day and night by night, you are losing the time that you can never be able to get back. You can neither buy nor save time, so make every-second more worthy. If you are not aware of that early, your time will pass relentlessly. Therefore, effective time management is an issue that people need to concern. It requires effort and perseverance to control time and fulfill a set of goals. So what is time management? It is a process of making a list, principles of implementing a schedule, which ensures that everything is accomplished according to plan, not wasted. Thus, time management is comprehended as a conscious action or process of control in terms of the time spent on particular activity, especially to increase productivity. Time management skill is one of the indispensable soft skills in life. It can help us plan and determine time to complete that plan in the most effective and optimally way. A good time management plan is a detailed plan for each short period with perspicuous deadlines and logic assignments. A wide range of skills, tools, and techniques can support it in performing a particular task. A time management system coherently combines many steps. In short, time management means greater control and making informed decisions on how we spend our time, and it has many effectuating benefits. Three of steps include determining the target, making a list of tasks, and conducting a plan which can help oneself manage their time more effectively.

To manage time effectively, the first thing you need to do is to determine the target. We need to define specific goals to make sure they are practical and achievable. The best way to remember is that your goal should be at the “SMART” (Doran, 1981) level. Firstly, “S” means specific. Targets can be ambiguous, but they must be clear and realistic. Everyone needs to delineate in detail what they want to achieve, and focus on what they want to do correctly. And if you set the right goals in the first place, you will know what you need to do to achieve them. The second letter is  “M” which stands for measurable. Your targets should be quantifiable so that you can test yourself where you are, allow you to track results, and decide if you have achieved your them. You can also build intermediate steps to complete your overall goal in the form of milestones. Besides, your targets should be “A”- attainable. You have to focus on these realistic and achievable goals. They demand on you a lot, but they should not be beyond your capability to be unrealistic. No one is persistent in implementing a list of thirty jobs, but there are twenty ones can be a good option. Your target must be within your reach, but it also takes a bit of challenge to push yourself to do your best. Next, “R” means relevant. You have to consider the target in the context  of  your grand scheme. Goals must relate to or direct impact on your life and career. Making positive change when you reach your goals is your motivation to keep moving forwards. Finally, the last element in “SMART” is “T”- timely. With a specified period for finishing work, you can plan for stages in transition that you need must achieve. That will help you fulfill your commitment by starting to act immediately. Breaking down your goals and limiting time will assist you to determine your work properly and give you a sense of urgency to focus on your work. In short, the more precise your goals are, the easier it will be for you to follow and focus.

The second thing that you need to do to manage your time is to make the lists of tasks. According to the principle of Pareto, in any system, its tendency is that about eighty percent of the result is caused by twenty percent of the causes (Juran, 2008). Relying on time management and productivity production, that the principle implies, we know that while twenty percent of the time we spend on a job produces eighty percent of output, the remaining eighty percent may only yield twenty percent of the output. This means that if you have a list of tasks of ten things to do, only two of them are more valuable than the rest. In fact, jobs that we often avoid because of complexity or difficulty are the most important and valuable ones. Because of that, you should classify tasks based on Eisenhower's method (Covey). Jobs labeled as urgent and important are those that require immediate attention, such as urgent matters, due projects, also work towards fulfilling your long-term goals. Besides, the principle but not urgent with which you can spend a lot of time and mind to deal. Therefore, the jobs belong to this group need not be done immediately, but you can complete them later. Next is urgent but not important jobs. These are chores that do not develop to your own purposes, such as daily announcing texts, listing plans. These jobs require quick execution, but they do not take too much time and do not matter. You can delay or reduce them. Finally, jobs which are not urgent and unimportant. These are trivial things that cause distractions and should be avoided as long as it is possible. Thus, you can completely ignore them. Through the Pareto principle, you can realize that using all of your mind and expertise on things that matter will help you spend more time in yourself, and no stress occurs. Thus, the efficiency and productivity of the job also increase.

The last step to manage time is to conducting a plan. There is a statement like this: “A plan is what, a schedule is when. It takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done” (Peter A. Turla). Therefore, buy a small notebook and write everything you want to achieve in the next year and then break them down by priority, which goal will be done first, what will be done later. Now, which one is the long term and which is the short term. In that notebook, you also can write things to do, to write emails and who to meet. Moreover, making a checklist of the tasks that you regularly perform so that you can check them off as you complete them. Developing a checklist as many tasks as possible so that whenever you receive such as a task, you need not to rethink different stages. Besides, you can use hourly planning where you know exactly what you need to be doing at specific hours of the day. In addition, you can try weekly planning, which gives you a specific overview over the week, which can be pretty helpful. These allow half an hour to organize your schedule at the end of each week and take five minutes at night to look at the next day’s schedule. This will help you become better organized while you spend more time in preparation and planning. You will save tenfold and not have to mend fences and fix bugs down the road. You know what goes well with time management, a magnificent work ethnic and some productivity tips.  You can also try planning in different ways, such as you can try bullet journaling, planning everything digitally on your computer, and also using a paper planner that already comes with specific layouts. In brief, making a work plan means you can see the workflow clearly to help you get things done and work better.

Deep-down, if you do the three steps correctly, you will manage your time effectively and be productive.