There's plenty of time for everything, you don't need more

Managing your schedule efficiently can result in professional and personal development

Sapience Analytics
Updated: Feb 8, 2016 08:55:37 AM UTC
time_management
I have found that when I track my time and activities, I am in better control of things

Image: Shutterstock

“Need more time? Try taking control of the time you already have and plan it well!” ~ Anne Pella  

This quote will pretty much summarise what I want to say. Recently, there was a very interesting conversation happening on Twitter where Sapience asked people to tweet their thoughts on this with a hashtag #INeedMoreTime. People tweeted things like “#INeedMoreTime to work out and get in shape”, “#INeedMoreTime to catch up with friends”, or “#INeedMoreTime to get to that guitar class I've been planning for months”.  It kind of amazes me. There are so many things which we all want to do, if only if we had more time.

Many of us think that we need more time, when actually, all we need to do is manage our time well. Time is the hottest commodity today – you cannot reclaim it, you cannot buy it and it does not grow, no matter what you do.

Everybody is looking for tips, tricks, hacks, tools and gadgets which will help them save time and be more productive. I thought of sharing three things which have helped me personally in getting more out of the available time and do many more things in life.

PLAN "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln

At a first glance, this might appear as a gross wastage of time. Why would you spend so much time NOT doing what you are supposed to do – which is cut the tree? Well, here comes the importance of planning. Instead of getting overwhelmed with the amount of work, it is important to acknowledge, plan, and prioritise the work. Simple to-do lists which list all the tasks you need to do in the day (personal as well as professional) along with the assigned priorities can be extremely useful in sailing smoothly through the day without feeling overwhelmed. When you put the items on the list, your mind suddenly becomes clutter-free, allowing you to concentrate better on the tasks at hand.

FOCUS   
"Focus is about saying, No." – Steve Jobs

Say no to digital distractions. Say no to noise. Say no to unplanned meetings. Say no to social media. I am not saying say no to these things permanently. But what has worked really well for me is allocating a focussed time for my core activities during certain times in the day – I call them my Golden Hours. These are the times when I am unavailable for meetings, I switch off my phone, I do not check my emails, and I am not on social media. Do you ask me what I do during this time? Well, I do my core activities during this time – the things I should be concentrating on. I have realised that such concentrated chunks of times for focussed activities help me in getting things done faster and in a better way.

WORK SELFIE
"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened." - Tao Te Ching

I find the whole idea behind a selfie very intriguing. You basically take a picture of yourself and then share it on social media. The millennials have gone crazy after this obsession, but I think that this concept has a lot of merits when applied to our work patterns. Let me explain how. All of us, at some point or the other, feel that we are not in control of our time. The day goes by but not a single item on our to-do list gets ticked. We are more or less clueless about how the time went by. I have found that when I track my time and activities, I am in better control of things. I use technology to track my time on PC as well as my time on mobile and then at the end of every day, I review how I spent my time – almost like looking at your own selfie. The review helps me in knowing if I am really spending my time on the right activities, am I checking my emails too often, am I spending too much time in meetings, or how many breaks I take and so on. Gaining insights into my work patterns and habits have helped me in building better habits. I also share my work patterns, with achievements as well as failures, with my friends and colleagues – to build social appreciation and also social pressure on myself.

Personally speaking, these small things have helped me achieve more things in a day – I have stress-free time to spend with my family, go on vacations, practice meditation, go trekking, and achieve much more at work too.

I guess one of the major problems is that people give priorities to their obligations and not for their passions. Instead of getting bogged down with thoughts and worries about work and duties in the office and then looking for mindless relaxation through things like watching TV, I rather prefer spending time on my passions which fill me with energy and enthusiasm.

Trust me, you don’t need more time. You already have plenty of it.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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