By ADMIN
Time Management in the 21st Century
Our lives are busier today than ever before. Time has become a valuable resource that we must manage properly if we’re to be able to stay in control of all the demands placed on us and keep stress to a minimum.
It’s important to have an approach to time management that works and helps you strike a healthy balance between your work and personal activities. There are actually a number of skills and techniques that can help you be more effective and save time, even when you’re under intense pressure. I’ve picked out three of the most powerful and practical ones to help you get more value out of your days and improve the quality of your life – goal setting, prioritizing and speed reading.
Goal Setting
Constructive goal setting is one of the most important strategies for improving your time management. Instead of aimlessly trying to fit everything in, setting clearly defined goals enables you to see the ‘big picture’ and co-ordinate all areas of your life from a high-level perspective. Your main outcomes provide the essential framework for determining exactly what needs to be done and in what order. An effective way to go about goal setting is to lay out your long, medium and short-term goals for each different area or domain of your life, for example, career, health, relationships, finances etc. Without having your goals clearly laid out, it’s very easy to squander your time on conflicting priorities or drift about at the mercy of where the tide takes you. Once you’ve defined your goals, you can then break them down into small-scale, manageable targets and actions.
Prioritizing
Writing down a list of all the tasks you need to undertake during the day or week acts as an excellent reminder system to keep you organised. To make this list effective however, it’s vital to sort the tasks in order of priority and then devote most of your time to the important tasks. Pareto’s principle states that 80% of your accomplishments come from 20% of your efforts. By prioritising, you focus your mind on the tasks that bring the greatest rewards and avert the natural tendency to just get on with the simple, easy tasks. There are a number of ways you can prioritise. One of the most popular techniques is to group tasks according to ABC criteria:
• A – Tasks that are critical to your goals and simply must be done first (i.e. urgent and important).
• B – These tasks are less urgent but are still important tasks that you should start right after you are done with the As. (i.e. important but not urgent).
• C – These are the ‘nice to do’ things that you could do if you have any time left after A and B tasks (i.e. neither urgent nor important).
Once this has been done you can then restructure your list in priority order and work through it accordingly.
Speed Reading
Speed reading is often overlooked as a time management technique. Yet with masses of reading material urgently demanding our attention every day, it’s the only way we can save reading time and prevent ourselves getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information facing us in reports, emails, documents, books and so on. Speed reading isn’t just about being able to read quickly, it’s also about inducing better concentration so that you can absorb more information. This serves to make you more efficient and effective all round. Here are some important tips for successful speed reading:
• Chunk groups of words together and read them simultaneously, say 4-5 words at a time. This allows you to discard your old style of reading word-for-word which can hold you back. What’s more, meaning is easier to pull from groups of words rather than individual words so by practicing this skill you train your brain to understand material better.
• Re-reading of previous sentences is a habit that drastically slows down reading speed. Learn how to reduce it by running a pointer such as your finger or a pen along the line as you read. Your eyes will follow the tip of your pointer, smoothing the flow of your reading so that you can go at a speedy pace.
• Avoid sub-vocalization (pronouncing each word in your head as you read it). This habit obstructs the power of your brain to swiftly comprehend and sort out information as you read. Your brain can actually grasp words more rapidly than you can read. So, push yourself to read at a faster rate and with practice you’ll get better at processing information quickly.
Time is a vital resource and must be managed wisely if you’re to stay focused and avoid unnecessary distractions. Learn how to apply powerful goal setting, prioritization and speed reading to make effective use of your time and take control of your life.
