Time is Money: KeyTime Management Concepts and tools

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

In today’s digital world, life is moving pretty fast due to the advancement of technology in every area of life. Do you know what the benefits of new technology are? According to my observation time saving is one of the most important benefits of new technology. For instance, online learning saves your time of commute to school, online banking saves your time of waiting in long queues for bill payment, online shopping saves your time and effort of shopping from malls, etc.

Now, what do you think these technological advancements really save your time or wastes your time? I think we have been involved in its usage so much that instead of saving our time they have proven to waste it more.

This is because we don’t actually know that how to use technology efficiently. Although the longer video content has been converted into short to save our time but the limitless scrolls on the internet for entertainment are consuming our time more than the previous.

What’s the reason behind, that today we have the latest technology but we are short of time? The answer is we have not managed our time efficiently and smartly. That’s why our years, months, weeks, and days are not much productive.

Everybody has 24 hours in a day either he’s Elon Musk, Mark Zukerberg, or any layman. But what makes Elon Musk so successful? Time management is one of them.

Some interventions have been made to optimize and manage your time efficiently. I have discussed the 6 most significant of them in the later section of the article.

Time Management Importance

According to research, a person whose age is around 75 years, a very long period, spends 25 years sleeping. He/she spends 10 years of his life working, 3.5 years eating, 9 years watching TV and other media. He/she left with 27.5 years to achieve something great in this world.

According to Apple founder Steve Jobs:

“It’s pretty clear that time is the most precious resource we have.”

We do not have to waste our time but utilize it wisely. Moreover, the significance of Time is that it:

• Cannot be purchased
• Cannot be loaned
• Cannot be accumulated

“Being on time is part of time management, not all of Time Management”.

What are Time-Management Objectives?

• How to keep promises/commitments?
• How to save time from a busy day?
• How to manage multiple tasks?
• How to list priorities?
• How to organize a daily schedule?
• How to meet deadlines?
• How to deal with interruptions?

Let suppose you can write 10 pages in 1 hour. Therefore, you can write 50 pages in 5 hours. So the time is increasing with increase in work/commitments. This proves a direct proportion between time and work.

When this pattern continues then at a certain point of time, you become stressful which bounds your work with time. So how do some people grow their business while others do not, both having the same 24 hours?

6 Interventions to Manage Time for more productive days

1. Tool Vs Substance
2. Set Goals
3. Organize yourself
4. Plan your activities
5. Delegate tasks
6. Use time management tools

1. Tool Vs Substance (Concept#1)

Suppose you want to lose weight. What will you do? You will go to shop, spend a big amount of money and purchase weight losing machines. These machines are tools to achieve your goal of losing weight.

Now, will you be able to lose weight just by purchasing these machines? Obviously, No. Unless you don’t put the effort, exercise on these tools for half an hour daily, you will not be going to lose weight. This effort is called substance.

Similarly, if you purchased the tools, also put your effort just one week and then leave it. Will you lose weight? The answer is No. You have to be punctual in your exercise. This punctuality is known as discipline.

Also, you should have the proper awareness of why you are doing it. What will be its consequences? So that this awareness keeps you motivated to achieve your desired goal.

So summing up,

Success= Tools+ Substance (Efforts+ Discipline+ Motivation)

Without tools, you may achieve success but without substance, you cannot be successful at all. Therefore, Substance is more important than tools to become successful.

2. Set Goals (Concept# 2)

You should be Proactive

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Being proactive means planning before the coming of opportunities. You will reap tomorrow what you sow today. It’s one of the habits of highly successful people. Don’t be reactive or opportunistic, otherwise, you will lose your time in many tasks and not be successful in anyone.

You should begin with the End in Mind

Every person should have a vision (long-term goal) in life. Those who make these goals, mostly achieve success much quicker than others because they know their direction in life. When you know your goal, its imagination would be easier and will help you keep motivated.

1. The Goal of Life; Major definite purpose: There should be a main goal of life. For instance, making any country medically self-sufficient or eliminate beggary from the society or end corruption or grow your business to a multinational company, etc. When you make this type of long-term goal, your all actions will ultimately be aligned to it.

1. What Goals; Business Carrier, financial: You should make goals for your business or job growth. For instance, there could be 30 years, 20 years, 10 years, and 5 years business goals that determine where you see yourself after a certain period in your business or job?
2. Why Goals; Personal, Family and Health: You’re achieving what goals to achieve Why goals. Let me ask you, why you are achieving your business goals? Mostly, to earn more money, right? And with that money, you’ll fulfill your personal and family desires. Let suppose as you achieve your 1-year goal of making a profit of $100,000, now you will achieve your why Goal by the result of What Goal. You will invest that money in upgrading your status, making a strong relationship with your family by taking them on a country trip, and investing time and money in your health.
3. How Goals; Personal and Professional: These goals provide you a roadmap that how you will personally grow yourself in your relationships, family, health, community service, etc. Similarly, how you will grow in your profession. By learning what skills and expertise will get you promotion in the job or grow your business?

3. Organize yourself (Concept# 3)

Neatness is a Key Habit

Keeping your workplace and surrounding neat and clean is beneficial for your health and environment. Also, it allows you to always stay refreshed and positive.

Order is Heaven’s first law

Now, how to keep your workplace neat? Keeping things in order and sequence makes your workplace neat. For everything, there should be a particular allocated place for it.

Organize your workplace (TRAF system)

You are thinking that how would I organize my workplace? So I have found a simple process for it. While organizing your workplace

T: toss

It means you will ask yourself that now or in the future, should I need this thing (document, book, etc.) or not?

R: Refer or delegate

If you don’t need it at all but you think someone else needs it then you will refer or delegate it to that needy person.

A: Action

If you need it now then take the action; for instance, read that document thoroughly, and act accordingly.

F: File

If you think that you need it in the future then you will file or keep it in a safe place.

4. Plan your Activities (Concept# 4)

Successful and effective people plan their activities. They don’t just start working on anything randomly.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.

Let me explain to you this concept of planning with an example of a Cheetah. The top speed of Cheetah is 110 km/hr. It reaches 0 to 90 km/hr in just 4 seconds. On the other hand, there is a Gazelle with a top speed of 80 km/hr. The Cheetah plan for its prey for around 2 hours, choose which Gazelle is best suitable for it. After such a long planning, Cheetah stalks around 230 to 330 feet close to the Gazelle and then attacks it. Cheetah’s top speed is when it’s hunting in sprint way (spending maximum time in the air). Now when it starts chasing the selected Gazelle, it don't not hunt any other Gazelle. Interestingly, Cheetah can run with its top speed just for 20 to 30 seconds; otherwise, it will heat up and die. The Gazelle dodges Cheetah for 20 to 30 seconds to gain time and save its life.

Lessons from Cheetah

• You should plan the task before you start even it takes time.
• Planning may take longer, but the execution will be much faster.
• You should not be opportunistic.
• Take small steps in the start then go for the big one.

Lesson from Gazelle

If you know that the damage has to be happened then try to minimize it. Make strategies for it, rather than doing nothing.

Moreover, before building your house you plan the budget, location, design, map, etc. If you don’t plan it then in the end you would be either run out of money or don’t like the location or map.

Just as it is unwise to start building your house without a plan, it is unwise to start your day, your week, your month, your year, and your life without a Plan.

Time duration for Planning

It is suggested that you should invest at least:

• 45 min. to plan your day.
• 2 hours to plan your week.
• 6 hours to plan your month.
• 3 days to plan your year.

Top tip: Always plan before the year or month or week or day starts not after the starting of your day.

5. Delegate (Concept #5)

Delegate means to assign your task to another person, particularly to the one junior to you. What benefit will you get by delegating? You cannot and should not do everything by yourself. So you delegate to your junior, which builds trust and empowers your team and organization. By delegating you can focus on more important tasks like networking and finding clients to grow your business.

What to delegate? You can delegate anything.

Remember! You delegate tasks, not responsibilities.

How to Delegate?

• Find a suitable person for the task.
• Train the person.
• Make sure the person has the required authority to do the job properly.
• Keep in touch with the person for their support.
• Praise/acknowledge the job when done.

6. Time Management Tools

Prioritization (Tool #1)

Stephen R. Covey in his book the 7 habits of highly effective people has introduced the four quadrants to manage time. They are mainly divided according to the important and urgent factors. Let me clarify the technical definition of the word important and urgent from the time management perspective.

Important:“Any action of yours that takes you towards your goals or objectives is called important”.

Urgent:“Any action of yours that cannot wait and if delayed will lose its relevance”.

Look for a while at the four quadrants in the time management matrix below.

Now let us take some examples of all four quadrants.

Quadrant-1 (Urgent-Important)

• Responding to an accident or a fire.
• Taking lifesaving drugs on time.
• Donating blood when a friend is in need.
• Studying for a test due tomorrow.

Quadrant-2 (Important-not urgent)

• Preparation/planning
• Savings.
• Day-to-day routine activities.
• Relationship building.

Usually, 80% of Q2 if delayed turns into Q1, which is called internal Q1. And 20% are external Q1 such as an emergency, which is completely out of our control.

Quadrant-3 (Urgent-Not Important)

• Responding to a wrong phone call.
• Attending to an unexpected guest.
• Watching a live cricket match.
• Attending a function that doesn’t take you towards your goal.

Quadrant-4 (Not Urgent-Not Important)

• Random Scrolling on social media.
• Sleeping as a hobby.
• Window-shopping.
• Viewing mindless TV shows.

Some activities sometimes take longer time than expected or due to any external Q1, we lose our time. Therefore, to manage these issues you should keep a buffer.

Buffer: “This is the margin of time incorporated into an activity which accounts for delays that can be anticipated”.

Relationship between Quadrants

General Handling of Quadrants

Parkinson’s Law

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

This law simply explains why you don’t get somethings done. It means working with a time budget. When you limit any task to a particular time block, you will try to complete that task in that timeframe.

Notebook (Tool #2)

Organize your Daily Schedule (Tool #3)

• To-do list
• Daily Scheduler

Your To-do list should be like this:

Your To-do list should be in this sequence:

The Daily Scheduler (DS) (Tool #4)

Concept: You must have the capacity to remember a meeting and its duration that was set months in advance.

Cardinal Rules of Using the D.S.

• Don’t give an appointment without looking at your D.S.
• Don’t start your day without looking at your D.S.

Roles and Goals Planning (Tool #5)

We have different roles in life. For instance:

• AT WORK

· Boss

· Colleague

· Subordinate

· Employee

• AT HOME

· Father

· Son

· Brother

· Husband

· Wife

· Neighbour

· Mother

· Daughter

· Sister

• AT COMMUNITY

· Citizen

· Church member

· Member of the welfare community

Now by identifying your roles you will define your goals accordingly. Closer relations need more time of your life because they are more sensitive.

Conclusion

Time passed never returns, that’s why plan your time. Manage it efficiently with the help of the above concepts and tools. If you follow the whole process of time management from setting goals to using the tools you will see a drastic positive change in your life. Moreover, you will have less clutter, strong relationships, and more success in life. And you will be able to maintain a work-life balance.

Acknowledgment to my teacher Dr.Ilyaas.