FIVE BEST TIME MANAGEMENT DO'S FOR
STUDENTS
From my thirty years in the field of Time
Management, and as a college professor, and more, importantly, as
a dad to my four kids, I have developed the "Five Best Time
Management Do's for Students" to help you to get more out of
every day, both your school day and during your personal time.
These suggestions can increase your success and, most important,
help you to have more fun along the way.
1. Plan an hour per day for "Me Time". Give
twenty-three hours to school, your friends, and your family but
keep one hour for yourself. During this hour add a new dimension
to your life that is not there because you didn't feel you had
the time for it. Read the books, learn a hobby, learn a foreign
language, develop computer skills, start a business, spend time
on health development etc. One hour per day is 365 hours in a
year. The average college course is about 35 classroom hours.
That equals 10 college courses per year. One hour per day and you
become a full-time student! By taking one hour per day of focused
study, any of us can become a world-class expert in a topic of
our choice. Would your future be more secure, certain, and
successful if you became a world-class expert in a topic of your
choice?
2. Establish a regular reading program. It can be just fifteen
minutes a day. Even with that small investment, the average
person will read fifteen books in a year. Also, consider taking a
Speed Reading course. I did. It helped me to double my reading
rate and comprehension. I can now read twice as much in the same
time period. Or, better still, you can read what you have to read
in half the time.
3. Overload your days. Create a daily action plan that includes
not only the things you "have to do", but the things
you "want to do". Parkinson's Law tells us that a
project will tend to expand with the time allocated for it. If we
give ourselves one thing to do during the day, it will take us
all day. If we give ourselves two things to do during the day, we
get them both done. If we give ourselves twelve things to do, we
may not get twelve done, but we may get eight done. Having a lot
to do in a day creates a healthy sense of pressure on us to get
focused and get it done. We almost automatically become better
time managers, less likely to suffer interruptions, not waste
time in meetings, etc. by having a lot to do. ("If you want
to get something done, give it to a busy person.") But don't
overload yourself beyond capacity. There's only 24 hours in the
day and things do take time. Don't spread yourself too thin.
4. Prioritize your list of "things to do". Some of our
tasks are "crucial" and some of our tasks are "not
crucial". We have a tendency to gravitate to the "not
crucial" items because they are typically quicker, more fun,
and easier to do. Identify the most important task you need to do
and label it as a "1", the second most important task
as a "2", etc. Then tackle your items in the oder of
importance, doing the most important items first.
5. Radiate a genuine, positive attitude. Often, like attracts
like and it repels the opposite. When you are in a negative mood
you tend to repel the positive people who do not want to be
strained and drained and brought down by your negativity. This
includes your friends, your family, and your teachers. And, when
you are in a negative mood, you have a natural system set up to
attract the other negative people to you who want to share their
stories of their misery so the two of you can compare experiences
to decide who has the worse life. Positive people help to bring
us up. Negative people help to bring us down.
THE TIME MANAGEMENT REALITY
I typically conduct 150 training days per
year, sharing with my audiences tools and techniques to help them
to increase their daily personal productivity and get more time
and balance in their personal lives.Wherever I am asked to speak,
I find people typically have "too much" to do. Most
have more to do than time allows for completion. We will never
get it "all done".
But here is the reality. While there is never enough time to do
it all, there is always enough time to do the important things.
In the early 1970's, my wife and I were both working, our
schedules were full, we did not have a minute to spare, or so it
seemed. Then, in the winter of 1973 our first child was about to
be born and a few weeks before she arrived, my wife and I were
agonizing over how we would find the time for this new
responsibility because, you know, babies, they take time. They
cry, you have to feed them. They need to be held, loved, and
tickled.
So what happened? Our daughter was born and we found the time.
Did we still have a social life? Yes, not like it was before her
birth, but yes, we still had a social life. Did we still have
time for our other family members? Sure, perhaps not as before,
but still we made it happen.
I am always amazed at the busy business executive who is so
consumed by their responsibilities that they cannot seem to find
the time for the things they truly would like to do. They are at
work first thing in the morning before anyone arrives and they
are the last to leave in the evening. They never seem to have the
time to enjoy a game of golf or watch their daughter perform at
the school play or read a novel or otherwise take time for
themselves to enjoy.
They believe if they were not present all the time that
"this place would fall apart". (A funeral director
friend once told me that in 20 years in his profession, he never
once met the widow who complained that her husband spent
"too little time" at the job.) Now here is the irony.
That same person, who can never seem to get the time for anything
beyond the job, gets a phone call one mid-afternoon. Their mother
has passed away unexpectedly. They drop everything and four hours
later they are on an airplane, gone for the next week, attending
to this important family matter.
When they return a week later, do they have anything to come back
to? Of course. Did things go wrong? Probably. But that can be
fixed. Why does it take a death, a threat of a divorce, or a
looming health crisis to do what we know we ought to be doing
now?
I often ask my audiences to answer two questions.
1. "What would you do differently in your life today if you
knew you only had six more months to live?" (The responses,
typically, are "get closer to my family", "spend
more time with friends", "travel", "read the
books I've been meaning to read", etc.)
2. "What are you waiting for?" That's question #2. Why
are you waiting to find that you only have six months left to do
the things that you know you would do if you only had six more
months to live?
Why can't you be closer and more attentive to your family now?
Why can't you spend more time with friends, travel, read the
books, etc.? The answer? You can. There is never for everything
but there is always enough time for the important things. When is
that time for you? It can always be found somewhere in the next
twenty-four hours. Sure, we want to do a great job of the things
we "have to" do. Exceed expectations, do more than you
are being paid for, and spend some of those twenty-fours
satisfying those responsibilities. But also be sure to take some
of those twenty-four hours to do what you know is truly
important.
EASING E-MAIL
It's interesting. Technology is often
heralded as a servant for us yet frequently we become a servant
to it. E-mail was trumpeted as the new communications tool that
would surely put first class "snail mail" out of
business. Last year, the U. S. Post Office delivered more pieces
of first class mail than ever and e-mails exceeded the volume of
first class mailings. We have created another layer of
communicating with one another and an additional responsibility
to monitor and manage.E-mail is a useful tool but many feel
controlled by this new vehicle. The average businessperson is
getting around 80 e-mails per day and many feel that about 80% of
the messages in their "In Box" are of little or no
value.
So, as always, rising to the occasion, I have four suggestions to
help you to become better at "Easing E-mail".
1. Get off the lists. The best way to deal with a problem is to
never have it. If you are receiving a lot of unwanted e-mails,
ask to be removed from the various lists. This would include your
inclusion in unwanted "cc" lists or unappreciated
solicitations from those promising "unlimited wealth without
risk or effort".
2. "Unlisted address". Just like getting an
"unlisted" telephone number that you share only with
those whom you want to give direct access, you might want to get
a separate e-mail address that you use only for the important
communications you wish to receive.
3. Check it once or twice per day. Many I speak with are become
chained to their email server, monitoring incoming email on a
continuous basis. Maybe this is because e-mail creates its own
sense of urgency, but most of the communications are not all that
urgent. I let my "incoming" batch up and I respond to
them a couple of times per day.
4. Deal with it. Like handling paper, you don't want to get into
the "shuffling blues" where you read e-mail, postpone
action, save it, re-read it later, and allow things to slip
through the cracks. As you open each e-mail do one of the
following:
a. If it requires a quick response, (it will only take a minute
or two), respond to it and delete it.
b. If it requires a response but is not the best use of your
time, try to think of a way of delegating it. There's a lot of
difference between "I do it" and "It gets
done".
c. If it is going to take any serious amount of time to respond (
beyond a minute or two), schedule it for action in your Day
Planner and then download the message, save it, or print it out
for future action.
INTERRUPT INTERRUPTIONS!
A lot of our daily responsibilities require
us to deal with interruptions, unanticipated events. These are
not the problem. It is the unwanted, unnecessary interruptions
that keep us from focusing on what really needs to get done. One
strategy that I share in my Time Management seminars is the
notion that "a problem well defined is 95% solved." We
need to interrupt the interruptions!Many of the interruptions we
deal with can be eliminated.
("The best way to deal with a problem is to never have
it.") To gain better control, I recommend the use of an
"Interruptions Log." Nothing fancy, just a pad of paper
headed with six columns: Date, Time, Who, What, Length, and
Rating. After every interruption occurs, log it in! Record the
Date and Time it occurred, Who brought it to you, a word or two
about What it dealt with, how Long it took, and most important,
your Rating of its importance (A=crucial, B=important, C=little
value, and D=no value). Plan to record this information for about
a week to get a fair measure of what is really happening. (It is
a nuisance to log this information in, but it does provide
valuable insights!)
After accumulating this data for a week, go back and total up the
A's, B's, C's, and D's. Most people discover that more than 50%
of their interruptions were C's and D's, things that were not
worth the time spent. Finally, go to each C and D interruption
and ask yourself, "How could this one have been
avoided?" and start to take proactive steps to insure that
it will not repeat itself in the future. Do this especially for
the repetitive interruptions.
For example, perhaps someone comes to you two or three times a
day asking for information that they could have located
themselves, just as easily. Unless there is an intervention,
helping this person to find the information for himself or
herself, they will continue to interrupt you to get it. It is the
path of least resistance. Help them to help themselves, teaching
them how to get what they need on their own, freeing your future
from having to spend time on what you know will be additional
interruptions from this person.
All C and D interruptions will not be eliminated, but if you can
head off, short circuit, and stop just a few and that buys back
an extra hour per day, then you have carved out some additional
time for long term projects that are being pushed back, thereby
reducing some of the stress and frustration.
TOP FIVE TIME MANAGEMENT MISTAKES
In my thirty years as a Time Management
speaker and consultant, I have observed a lot of what we can and
should not do to increase our daily results. Time management is
not necessarily working "harder", but rather,
"smarter".And to accomplish significantly more in our
days, we need not increase our efforts. As an example, in a
horserace, the first horse may earn a $50,000 purse and the
second horse may earn a $25,000 purse. The first horse gets twice
as much money as the second horse, not because it ran twice as
far or twice as fast. It was only a "nose ahead" of the
competition.
So it is with our daily results. We need not run twice as fast or
put in twice the effort to significantly increase our daily
success. We only need to be a "nose ahead" of where we
already are. We are all productive in our days. We would not
survive the demands of this world if we were not. The real
challenge is how much more productive can we become?
A lot of our Time Management has to do more with what we are not
doing rather than what we are doing. Sometimes our mistakes and
omissions will keep us from running at a full pace.
Here are the Top Five Time Management Mistakes we should all
avoid to help us to increase our daily success both on and off
the job, in less time and with less stress.
1. Start your day without a plan of action. You will begin your
day by responding to the loudest voice (the squeaky wheel gets
the grease) and spend it in a defensive mode, responding to other
people's and events' demands. The tail will wag the dog. If there
is a void of leadership in your Time Management life, someone
will fill that void, not that others are bad people, but others
will take all of your time if you let them. You will have worked
hard but may not have done enough of right things. Time
Management is not doing the wrong things quicker. That just gets
us nowhere faster. Time Management is doing the right things.
2. Get out of balance in your life. Our lives are made up of
Seven Vital Areas: Health, Family, Financial, Intellectual,
Social, Professional, and Spiritual. We will not necessarily
spend time every day in each area or equal amounts of time in
each area. But, if in the long run, we spend a sufficient
quantity and quality of time in each area, our lives will be in
balance. But if we neglect any one area, never mind two or three,
we will eventually sabotage our success. Much like a table, if
one leg is longer than the rest, it will make the entire table
wobbly. If we don't take time for health, our family life and
social life are hurt. If our financial area is out of balance, we
will not be able to focus adequately on our professional goals,
etc.
3. Work with a messy desk or work area. Studies have shown that
the person who works with a messy desk spends, on average, one
and a half hours per day looking for things or being distracted
by things. That's seven and a half hours per week. ("Out of
sight-out of mind." And the reverse of that is true too,
"In sight, in mind"). And, it's not a solid block of an
hour and a half, but a minute here and a minute there, and like a
leaky hot water faucet, drip, drip, drip, it doesn't seem like a
major loss, but at the end the day, we're dumping gallons of hot
water down the drain that we are paying to heat. If you have ever
visited the office of a top manager, typically, that person is
working with a clean desk environment. Many would attribute this
practice to that person's access to other staff members. While
there may be some truth in that conclusion, in most cases, if we
went back some years in that person's career, they probably were
working with a clean desk back then which gave them the focus
they needed to become promoted to where they are today.
4. Don't get enough sleep. Studies show that nearly 75% of us
complain on a regular basis, all throughout our days, that we are
flat-out tired. For most people, they get the quantity of sleep,
but they lack the quality of sleep. Their days are filled with so
much stress, they are out of control, working harder but maybe
not smarter, that it's difficult to get a full night's sleep.
(For some, they simply do not allow for a sufficient quantity of
sleep.) If you will plan your day, then work your plan, you will
get more done, feel a higher sense of accomplishment, and
experience less stress and enjoy a more restful night's sleep.
5. Don't take a lunch break. Many do not take a lunch break,
working through that time period in the hope that it will give
them more time to produce results. Studies have shown it may work
just the opposite. After doing what we do for several hours, we
start to "dull out". Sure, we can work through lunch
and be productive, but that is not the issue. The issue is
"how much more" productive we can be. A lunch break,
even a short fifteen minute break, gives us a chance to get our
batteries all charged up again to more effectively handle the
afternoon's challenges. We are then less likely to procrastinate
a few of those difficult tasks that, in the long run, will make a
positive difference in our personal productivity.
**********************************************************************
Don Wetmore-Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
60 Huntington St. P.O. Box 2126
Shelton, CT 06484
(203) 929-9902
email:ctsem@msn.com
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