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Do You Know How to Manage Time?

Posted April 19, 2017 & filed under Productivity

Do You Know How to Manage Time?

It seems like every year there is less and less time in the day. While that isn’t actually true, we all have more distractions than ever. Yes, our smartphones can be wonderful and sometimes help us be more productive, the constant connectedness to email, social media, and the internet can be incredibly distracting. Having everything readily available on your smartphone can be fantastic, but not if you go into a “blackhole” and before you know it you have been “surfing” on your smartphone for 30 minutes. Entrepreneur Magazine online recently shared some great advice on how to manage time in an effective manner.

According to the article, “Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as ‘the point or period at which things occur.’ Put simply, time is when stuff happens.” The definition of time is helpful because it points out that things occur over time. But, how do we measure time so that our measurement of time includes activity? It does seem to hard to measure time, but the article goes on further to explain the types of time and how time can be measured to include activities. The article states that, “There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.” The article then goes on to explain that: “In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you’re doing.” When explaining real time, a key example from the article shows that with real time, all time is relative: “Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years.”

We all live in real time. Even though we all have alarm clocks and watches and more, we don’t live in clock time. We live in real time, where time flies and drags depending on the activity and the level of enjoyment. So, it is clear that we live in real time. Whether you like it or not, we live in real time. Luckily, though, real time is mental. Real time can be managed based on attitude and outlook. Since we create real time, we can manage it, and this means we have control over how real time will affect us. The article explains that we must “remove any self-limitation” when it comes to real time and “not having enough time”, and this means that we must manage our time by choosing how to spend it.

There are three ways to spend time that matter according to the article: 

  1. Thoughts
  2. Conversations
  3. Actions

Real time and work are directly impacted by thoughts, conversations, and actions. Our work is impacted by thoughts we have at work, conversations we have at work, and actions we take at work. It may seem hard to manage our real time as it either flies or drags on, but there are steps we can all take to ensure we manage our time and get our work done while also living and enjoying life. Here are some steps to take to master real time:

  • Carry a schedule and track thoughts, conversations and activities for a week in order to realize how much time certain activities take and once tracked, activities and the time commitment of activities will be clear and thus allow for planning in future
  • Assign a specific time to activities or conversations that are important to your success. It is essential that times are set on schedule to allow for high-priority activities. Be disciplined about scheduling activity time.
  • Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time on thoughts, activities and conversations that yield results.
  • Allow for interruptions and schedule time for these interruptions.
  • Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan the day’s activities
  • Take 5 minutes before every call or meeting or task to make sure you decide what you wish to accomplish
  • Block out social media and distractions and don’t allow Facebook and social tools to distract you from goals for the day
  • Remember! Sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day! It’s impossible to get everything done sometimes, so remember that results require patience and time management.