Effectiveness of time management

Time management helps an individual effectively manage their tasks and give themselves the leisure time that they require to energize themselves. Having said that, the routine life of today doesn't allow one to lay-back and re-energize. In today's competitive world, being on your toes at all times is a key and hence multitasking is the only way to reduce the stress and complete your work efficiently, right! WRONG.

A timer for instance at work is a good way to keep a track of time and manage your work. Similarly after work, if you've a set routine at home i.e. when to eat, when to relax, when to go to sleep then you are in fact well in check with the time. 

A timer is a clock ticking for you to ideally finish your task in a given time and seize the time off that you need to relax and rejuvenate. What happens in reality though is, employees of today tend to put in long hours at office because the boss just wouldn't leave his/her cabin and so how could the employee go home! Therefore, it's better to sit idle and finish work under the pressure of a pressure-cooker at late hours of office instead of effectively managing the tasks. 

The essential quality of any successful person is their time management. There are star personalities who have a fixed time to go to work and come back from work and this is all because no matter how many hours you put in each day, it's the end result that counts. If you can deliver the same work you deliver in 10 mins, in say about 5 mins, then you have the liberty of 5 mins off and that does help a lot in today's competitive environment. 

Consider this for instance, you're in your office and you've got pile of files lying in front of you that have to finished by end of the day i.e. in 9 hours. Now considering that you take 30 mins for each file and there are 15 files in total, the estimated time you need to finish all the files is - 7 and a half hours. This means you would have finished your day's work even before the close of office, in fact way before, you'd still have leisure time of 90 minutes. This sounds easy because time management helps you to put your task into perspective. For instance, had we not known the average time it takes for one file to get completed, who knows how much time it would have taken for all the files to be finished! 

A timer is equally important to have at home because time-management is absolutely key to keep yourself fit and healthy. Due to immense work pressure and work load, we tend to cut on sleeping hours, this must be strictly avoided. If you ask any trainer of time management about sleeping hours, the advice you will get is - the minimum sleeping hours necessary to wake up fresh everyday is 8 hours. Also "early to bed, early to rise" is the motto one must follow in order to lead a healthy life but today the quote has become "late to bed, late to rise, I don't know how but I almost get it right". We must not allow the work load to get the better of us and that's why we have time management to manage each of ours tasks effectively. If we allow ineffectively time management to get better of us then we sure are not in for a great time in near future. 

Set goals and visions for the next day, do not let too much work come in your way which can perhaps lead to too much pressure and non-quality work. Take small assignments in one go and finish them, do not go for bulk of work at one given time - multitasking sure is helpful but it isn't when it comes in the way of quality work. Remember, "quality is always priority" and giving time to quality work is equally important. 

Let me share a story with you about time management. I will not be taking name of the business in this story but you must know that this story is absolutely real and this happened about an year or two ago. 

A businessman ran a big corporate firm which was going well and could be regarded as one of the better profitable organizations of the market. The owner of the business was a tall and fit man or so his colleagues and employees thought. The owner was in good habit of going on a morning walk every day at 4:00 AM. One day on his morning walk, he suddenly collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, the doctors made it official that he had a heart attack and was no more....

The reason that the doctors gave for the heart attack was too much work pressure, less hours of sleep and most importantly - poor time management. Even though the business owner woke up at 4:00 in the morning every day, he in fact slept for only about 2 hours and had a tight schedule at work. What this story tells us is that it is good to be loyal to your schedule but until and unless your time management isn't helping you in managing your tasks effectively, what really is the point! Surely you need to reconsider your time management and set one for yourself again - this time giving yourself some leisure time in working hours and giving yourself the much required 7-8 hours of sleep. 

One of the world's most renowned poet William Shakespeare puts time management into perspective "Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late."  

Time management is a skill that you must sharpen in order to achieve your goals. It's best to maintain a gap of 5-10 mins between your work and re-freshen your mind. A timer helps you to keep in check with your schedule and give yourself the liberty of knowing that you're either on time, before time or late - which you can then effectively manage because without time management, we're all like a mobile without a sim - we're aware of our capabilities but cannot fulfill them because of ineffective time management. Hence, time management truly is an essential key to success.