Managing Time and Avoiding Stress

Time Management is one of the basic skills that you need to acquire as you go through your daily work. Some tasks are routine. These may be easily handled, however we are not in a perfect world, so when mixed with some time-stealers and unplanned tasks or activities, time management can be quite daunting to accomplish. We only have a fixed 24-hour day that sometimes we feel it isn’t enough to do all the things we need to do. However you decide to spend it is up to you, but it is always a healthy idea to spend some amount of work-life balance so that you can avoid excessive and prolonged stress that may lead to depression and a wide range of other long-term physiological effects.

Managing your time starts with understanding a few important concepts: Biorhythm, Procrastination, Activity Planning, Workspace, and Delegation. Let us take a look at these important concepts and see how these affect our time management.

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Biorhythm is also known as circadian rhythms. It came from the Greek term bios, which means life, and rhuthmos, which means regular recurring motion. This tells us that our body, being the creatures-of-habit that we are, functions with regularity. Some of us are more energetic at night while some are more active during the earlier part of the day. To maximize our time, it would be good to identify which parts of the day we are most active and energetic so we can put the more complex and meaningful tasks on those parts of the day.

Procrastination is another concept we need to understand in managing time. Procrastination is setting aside an activity that you can do now and deciding to do it at a later time. As a worker, we need to understand what procrastination level we are at. Like most things, awareness is the start of change. Identify if you are a procrastinator and decide to make a change.

Our workspace is one thing that we usually take for granted, but it is a very important factor in managing time. A cluttered work station is almost always a time stealer as it usually takes time finding what something amidst the mess. Aside from that, it also creates a barrage of silent attention stealers shouting “Deal with me!” for you. An organized workstation can help your mind become at ease. Our minds usually respond well to an orderly environment. It allows us to keep our focus on the important things.

One way to effectively manage your activities within a fixed amount of available time is activity planning. You can plan your activities for the day so you can allocate ample time to accomplish them. Activity planning also helps you break down complex tasks into smaller, more manageable ones. This allows you to eliminate unnecessary stress. The next time you encounter an overwhelming task or a big project that seems too arduous, try activity planning. It definitely helps!

Lastly, when you have the opportunity, delegation is also an effective way of managing time. There are tasks you can delegate both at work and at home. Delegation can also be quite tricky to do. You need to consider the right person for the task. Sometimes, it can be confusing what you can delegate or not. As a key guide, you can always ask a few questions: 1. Is the task not too complex and someone has the right skill level to handle it? 2. Does the task not require extreme confidentiality? 3. Does the task keep me from high priority activities? – If you answered yes to all three questions, then you can delegate the task.

Understanding these five concepts is only the start of how you can manage time. You can still find out more ways on how you can manage your time. There isn’t a cookie-cutter approach for all challenges in managing time. One situation can differ from another. If you would like to learn more about managing time, you can also contact us or check our training calendar by clicking this link.

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