Time_Management

You can create the best time management plan there has ever been and you will still not guarantee success. Best laid plans often go awry once distractions rear their ugly head. Distractions come in many forms and unless you are properly prepared to identify and handle such distractions you are all but assured of failure. Time is our most precious asset; it is unique in that once you use it up it is gone. You cannot create more time, nor can you reuse it. Taking all this into consideration, it is confusing to understand why we don’t take better care of the time we have. Everyone wastes time; it is part of being human (Haynes, 1987). These time wasters basically come from one of two sources. The first source is self, a couple of the more popular time wasters are, disorganization and procrastination. The other source is environmental, some of the many environmental time wasters are; visitors, telephone calls, and crises. Disorganization is often the main offender when it comes to self-generated time wasting. One doesn’t have to look too far to locate the culprit. Your study or work area is often disorganized or cluttered. Simply taking the time to organize your desk, materials and even your office machines, such as computer, printer and telephone will lead to increased efficiency. Starting the day with a clean and organized work space often leads to an organized approach to the days tasks. Procrastination: Silber (1998) stated,“No matter what the reason, procrastination is a waste of time.” We have a multitude of reasons or excuses for our procrastination. We enjoy the rush of waiting to the last minute, we are not sure of exactly how to accomplish the task, or we simply are not confident that we can complete the assigned task competently. Procrastination, everyone does it, but when you add up the overall costs of procrastination you will realize that it may be a cost far too expensive to bear. Procrastination can cost you a career, education or even a relationship. A few ways to beat procrastination is to set deadlines, have a detailed schedule and stick to it, and break large projects down into smaller more manageable projects. Perhaps Nike has given us the best advice “Just do it”. Haynes (1987) stated, “ Even when you are well organized and making effective use of time, there will always be interruptions and distractions from outside sources.” These types of interruptions and distractions are environmental time wasters. Visitors are one of the distractions that may not be easy to eliminate. However, you can limit the amount of people you invite to your work area, simply close your door or set aside a very specific time for your tasks and make sure everyone understands the importance of privacy during that time. Telephone calls are another distraction that can and will derail you from your days work. Removing the telephone from your selected work area is one way to defeat this distraction, turning off the ringer and utilizing an answering machine will also help in reducing the distraction of the telephone. Crises come in two forms, unavoidable and avoidable. The avoidable crises usually come as a result of procrastination. Something that you did or did not do that actually brought the crises forth. The second form of crises is the unavoidable crises, such as sick children, broken down automobiles, computer crashes and priority shifts, just to mention a few. The first step to prevent future crises is to review your history, if you discover that some crises have a tendency to re-occur, take action to prevent that re-occurrence. Do a self evaluation to determine if there is potential disaster. For example, before starting college you notice that your laptop has become unreliable you should be proactive and replace the laptop before your classes begin. The last thing you want to lose is a ton of research or assignments the day before they were due, to a laptop failure. Other ways to deal with a crises, first determine if the crises is in fact a crises. Maintain your cool, take the time to deal with it, don’t put it off and remain flexible. Remember Murphy’s law is always in effect.