A conversation this morning with a 23 year old young lad inspired me to write this post. The conversation was on “Time Management”. Like many others, this youngster was also finding it tough to accomplish various tasks in a given day. His average sleep time has reduced drastically with about 3-4 hours a day! To be very honest, he was struggling with his daily
routine.

I googled three combinations for time management and following is the result:

Pages available on “Time Management” are 219,000,000

Pages available on “Time Management Tips” 41,600,000

Pages available on “Time Management Skills” are 56,800,000

One thing in common, none of these can help you increase even a single minute of a 24 hours cycle! Isn’t that astonishing?

The fact of the matter is that due to increasingly demanding life-styles, society as a whole is suffering. Lack of sleep is causing stress that continues piling up until you hit the weekend. And most weekends are also hectic at families or other stuff that was neglected during the week. Undoubtedly, time is our one of the most valuable resource. Time cannot be created; the only option is to utilize it with the best of your abilities.

Following are some tips that I use for getting the best out of my time:

Identify timewasters

Timewasters are the common cause for “not having enough time”. These have stuck with us like jelly fish. Texting, facbooking and tweeting are generally the most common timewasters. Instead of making these your routine, do these activities only if you have time.

Identify Stress Cause

Stress is a silent killer. It hurts physically and mentally and reduces your ability to deliver or accomplish. Once identified, try to avoid these causes. Often anger causes most stress. Try to stay happy and enjoy what you do.

Organize Your Week

You might question, why not organize my day first? Believe me if you start with organizing a week, your days will be automatically organized.

Important vs Urgent Work

In articles related to Time Management, there is mention of Important work vs Urgent work. For me if it is not a question of death, rest is just important.

Make Use of Travel Time

I do most of my reading and editing during flights. I appreciate that not everyone travels as much as I do, but this is just a little example of better utilization of time.

Relax and Take Good Sleep

Highly important! Sleep at least 6 hours in every 24 hours, walk or do some exercise (20-25 minutes). Reduce caffeine of all kinds and watch less TV. This will free your mind to focus on “Important Stuff”.

If you start following these simple steps, I am sure you will be able to free-up couple of extra hours every day!

Many years back, my class fellows and I were waiting for a new visiting teacher to take first session of an advanced master-level course on management. We were quite relaxed as the teacher was already fifteen odd minutes late and the course coordinator had just confirmed that she was stuck in a traffic jam caused due to VIP movement, which has become a hallmark of Islamabad ever since, and that she was on her way to the University and would soon make it for the class. Naturally, I and my class fellows went further slack expecting she would first apologize for coming late after entering the class, then routine ice-breaking would follow through formal introductions etc., and onwards till the end of the stipulated three hour credit time the course plan / outline, do’s & don’ts etc., would be discussed as the way first sessions are usually conducted. However, when our teacher entered the class two things struck us all like lightening, firstly the graceful & impressive personality of our teacher and secondly she did not follow the normal pattern and instead asked the students to get ready for a five minute written quiz, take out papers and explain any [...]