The Importance of Time Management by Kiersten Robertson

Time management is one of the most important things that a person must learn in their life.  It is one that I have personal struggles with and am now even facing issues because I have poor time management skills.  

What is Time Management?

Time management is usually seen to be as simple as the word are to say. It is where you manage your time.  Unfortunately, it is not that easy.  By definition Time management is managing your time in an effective manner that when put towards a specific activity will help you reach a specific goal. It is important to use this tool as it will help you in all ways of life. Time management includes five main activities in general:

1.    Effective Planning

2.    Setting goals and objectives

3.    Setting deadlines

4.    Prioritizing activities as per their importance

5.    Spending the right time on the right activity

Each step is extremely important to how to manage your time.  I personally have missed a few steps and it is difficult to make up for what you miss out on because of poor time management skills.

Effective Planning

This is essential to have effective planning when trying to get things done in a timely manner.  If you are able to plan ahead about what needs to be done it is best to get this done early.  This step is one that gets me into trouble a lot.  I have trouble coming up with plans and when I do. I tend to forget to actually put things in to effect.  A good way to combat this would be to set reminders to do this early and not wait until time is almost out.

Setting goals and objectives

Setting goals and objectives can be both a simple and difficult task at the same time.  A goal can be something as easy or as simple as deciding what must be done. For example, “I will go to the gym today”.  That can be your goal for the day. A more complex goal might be something like “I must finish this assignment that is worth the majority of my grade”. This goal is a bit more complex as it can have many smaller goals within it such as what part of the assignment should be finished when.

Setting deadlines

Deadlines are the one thing that tends to make time management hardest for me.  Sometimes the deadlines are personal, other times they are set by others and if they are not met it can get you in a world of trouble.  I find that this step is one of the ones that I forget the most.  Not meeting a personal deadline is what gets me into the most trouble.  I may remember the hard deadlines but the ones I set for myself usually end up blowing away with the wind.  A trick I am learning to use is to set reminders on my phone for a week before my personal deadline is meant to be hit and again for a few days before.  

Prioritizing activities based on their importance & Spending the right time on the right activity

This step really has inclusions in all the other steps as well. To be able to set goals and deadlines you must be able to see what is more important than other things. Something that can be difficult is realizing one’s own faults and being able to correct the mistakes that have been made.  It is important to realize when too much or too little time has been given to a specific task so that you can try and use what time you have left to what is truly important.  I personally know I have not devoted the time and effort that I should here on Ability Online and unfortunately it is not something that can be fixed with a sorry.

Time Management is important for every person.  If I could turn back time, go back to January when I was introduced to this website would I do things differently? YES.  Unfortunately, it is impossible to turn back time.  It is my hope that I can just do better in the future.  I took the fact that I am doing this as a placement online that I would be able to focus and do things right. Now I see that without proper time management I still can make mistakes and make things difficult for those around me.  

I hope that by writing this I can help anyone that has time management problems like I do and maybe even one less person will have the problems that I deal with now.

My advice: Be organized, be focused and don’t take something for granted just because you think it will be easy. Do not make excuses and do what you must to complete your tasks and your life may have a lot less challenges.