Time Management - The Key to a Better Life
Posted in Productivity
Time management is about focus. The Pareto Principle—also known as the ‘80:20 Rule’—states that 80% of effort generates 20% of outcomes. The other side of the principle is, 80% of the desired outcome can be generated by 20% of effort. While the 80/20 ratio is somewhat arbitrary, it is emphasizes what can be lost or gained through effort.
Some people view time management as a list of rules around scheduling of appointments, goal settings, planning, to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core of time management and need to be understood to develop efficient time management skills. However, there is more to time management than these basics. Skills such as decision making, emotional intelligence and critical thinking are also essential to effective time management.
Time management involves everything you do. Time management is about effectively leveraging the 80/20 ratio to get the most out of your life. A balanced lifestyle is a key result of effective time management.
Time management is about getting results, not about being busy.
There are six areas in your life that can be improved through effective time management:
- The physical – being healthy with less stress and fatigue.
- The intellectual – learning and knowledge growth and management.
- The social – developing personal relationships and actively contributing to society.
- The career – your calling and work.
- The emotional – your feelings and desires and how you show them.
- The spiritual – your personal quest for meaning.
You may not have a set of items on a to do list for each of the key areas—then again, you might. However, determining which area in your life is not receiving enough attention needs to be part of your overall time management strategy. Each of those six areas are necessary parts of the whole you. If you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.
It is important to integrate your whole life into your time management system. Being organized and prepared makes it easier to grab opportunities for personal development in all areas of your life.
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Comments
Hi Ian,
Your article raises some very important points though, fundamentally, we cannot manage time. We can only manage our activities.
You are so on the money when you talk about the 80:20 rule as it relates to our effectiveness. It certainly boils down to the results we produce rather than how busy we are.
We have to learn how to treat every moment we have on this Earth as a precious commodity. After all, we only have a finite length of time but the snag is that we don’t know how long we have and when your time is up…
As Jim Rohn said,
“Time is more valuable than money.
You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”
I think Nickolove is right on the mark, properly managing our activities is crucial to effective time management.
A good way to do this is to “delegate” tasks as much as possible. Be it to people or tools.
I work for PassPack, so I’ve come to learn that using a password manager will really help me save time:
True, it safely stores all my passwords, but I can also organize them, tag them, and log into the sites I wish with just one click.
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