Time Management

 "Don't wait. The time will never be just right. "

According to Roberts (1998), Time Management is organizing or scheduling the time for a particular purpose to generate effective work with productivity. Good time management involves planned scheduled work, planner like to-do-list which is needed to complete to gain the necessary results at last. Time management has become a key in present busy world which we live.

The lecture started with a simple activity which was given by the Lecturer Mr. Rehan to give an idea to students how to manage the time effectively and efficiently in their work. The task was about Time Rock Problem where students have to say how to fill the jar with Large stones and small stones well as  by pouring water.

In the first picture the large and small stones as well a water bottle is displaying where as in the second picture by the use of the all components the jar must be full.
To this the capacity have to be managed.

The next activity was the Time Management Exercise in LMS of APIIT. The students had to enter the number of hours that is needed to perform each task below and then calculate the otal time taken for a week for the following  activities.

168-85.25 = 82.75
(85.25/168) * 100 = 50.7%=51%

Time management Matrix
According to Mindtools (1994), Important activities have a great outcome which leads achievements of the goals where as urgent activities associate with achievements of some body as its demand attention of the person.

Urgent and Important

In this section procrastination of tasks can be avoided as all the tasks which cannot forecast and have few minutes to complete are falling to this category (Mindtools, 1994).  As an example if you have to face to an emergency situation then you have to think about the Urgent and Important of that and face to that.

Urgent and Not Important
This has the capability to stop the achieving goals as well as avoid completing the tasks(Mindtools, 1994). Most of the people do these types of interruptions as they need to do their work. To this the best answer is No; try to encourage them to do.

Not Urgent, but Important

In this part can achieve the goals and to complete the work which is important (Mindtools, 1994). In order to do these tasks there is plenty of time and no need to get a stress.

Not Urgent and Not Important

We should try to ignore or keep away from the activities which comes line under here (Mindtools, 1994). They do not consider the outcome which is expecting from a work as they do not have an idea what to do.

Next when author consider the Time Box by Steven Convey for the above exercise its as below.

From the exercise above author understood that how much time we spend for all the activities and how much time is there left for study even we say we are busy. So if we say that the time is not enough to complete the task its not an excuse in future.

According to the Time box activities;

• In the section Urgent & Important is for Perfectionist
• In the section Not Urgent & Important is for Time Manager
• In the section Urgent & Not Important is for Slob ( None of the Activities)
• In the section Not Urgent & Not Important is for Doer

- A Perfectionist is not fully rational but priorities the work (Sidsavara,2007). As an example work for hard deadlines for projects.  

- Time Manager is reviewing the career path and spend time with family (Sidsavara,2007).

- A slob is every time lazy and not considering work means wasting time own and others (Sidsavara,2007). They are replying to mails or chatting with others.

- A Doer is lost means no idea what to do. So its clearly a time waster (Sidsavara,2007). The people under this group are loss of important key areas of assignments etc. 

Finally, based on the results of the Time Box the author is belonging for the Perfectionist Section. Because most of the activities performing is belonging to that section and also to maximize the time in Productive Zone, by managing the Busy work in Q3 and minimizing the Fruitfulness tasks in Q4 author has achieved the Q1.

09-11-2012
Based on what I learned I am looking in to the area of  "How to WIN the Big Time Wasters?" When researching i came across the article about the ways to improve time management by Josy  1998). Some of the approaches are as following.

1. Avoid others who waste my time
2. Find the bad habits where I waste time
3. Manage Procrastination
4. Make to-do-lists (In the beginning Must Do's have to be there and Like Do's is coming in the end)
5. Concentrate on one thing in order to make sure that you complete that task.
6. Don't let more time in domestic tasks.

07-11-2012 & 08-11-2012
SMART Goals

- Specific:- Well defined clear positive idea of the task with fundamental knowledge (Projectsmart, 2000).

- Measurable:- Use methods to measure the progress towards the attainment of each goal which is setting  (Projectsmart, 2000).

- Achievable:- When you identify the goals that  are most significant and identify which can make them come true  (Projectsmart, 2000).

- Realistic:- The goal must have an objective towards willing and able to work (Projectsmart, 2000).

- Timely:- Grounding the goal with the time frame and use time productively (Projectsmart, 2000).

Came across another article by Jussila (2012), where the two layers life management and personal productivity come across the time time management. Life Management has personal productivity, physical training, social relationships, financial management and eating habits.The personal productivity is more important for achieving different sort of tasks in the life. The personal productivity includes time management, learning, organization, mental control, creativity and decision making. Therefore now you can see that there is a relationship between life management, personal productivity and time management in our lives in order to survive.Time management skills are Managing goals, Managing tasks,Prioritizing,Calendar utilization,Managing procrastination. 

Let's Improve your Time Management Skills! & Prioritize the work!

Reference:-

Jussila, H.(2012) Time Management: Our Definition . time-management-solutions, [blog] 05th April 2012, Available at: http://www.time-management-solutions.com/time-management.html [Accessed: 09th November 2012].

Mindtools (1994) The Urgent/Important Matrix - Using time effectively not just efficiently - Time Management Skills from MindTools.com. [online] Available at: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_91.htm  [Accessed: 9 Nov 2012].

Projectsmart (2000) SMART Goals. [online] Available at: http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-goals.html  [Accessed: 7 Nov 2012].

ROBERTS, J. (1998). Time management: your questions and answers. Richmond, Trotman.

Sidsavara (2007) Covey’s Time Management Matrix. [online] Available at: http://sidsavara.com/personal-development/nerdy-productivity-coveys-time-management-matrix-illustrated-with-xkcd-comics  [Accessed: 6 Nov 2012].