Improving one’s time management skills is a personal journey. If time management issues become a major roadblock in someone’s life, it’s almost certainly worth the time and effort to seek professional help from a life coach or time management expert. Poor time management skills can lead to serious problems like depression or low self-esteem, though a lack of those skills can also be the cause of those problems. Most people, on the other hand, suffer from a much more basic lack of strategy and can manage their time without the assistance of a professional.
Some people respond well to time management systems or computer programs that outsource responsibility for time spent to an external, albeit self-controlled, source. People who get along well with these programs usually know they’ve found a good fit because the system works and feels natural right away. Unfortunately, someone who is not naturally inclined to obey or stick to a program will not grow to love it over time and will have to resort to more human time management methods.
Many people find that writing down the tasks that need to be completed, prioritizing them, and then addressing them one at a time greatly improves time management. Writing down tasks relieves anxiety about forgetting something and also helps to solidify what will be accomplished so that distractions are minimized. Prioritizing relieves stress caused by approaching deadlines and ensures that the most important tasks are completed first. Working on one problem at a time rather than multitasking helps many people focus and may result in the task being completed faster than it would have been otherwise. Multitasking can, of course, be used to save time if the task is simple to multitask.
Multitasking, when done correctly, can be a great way to incorporate time management into your day. When doing laundry, for example, focusing on one project while it’s in the washer and another while it’s in the dryer is a great way to divide time while completing multiple tasks. Time is managed without much thought by using one job to set aside time for three others.
The first and most dangerous enemy of achievement is procrastination. A person is procrastinating life’s activities when he or she is not intentionally accomplishing something, even if that something is recreation. Procrastination is defined as not working on a project that needs to be completed. Getting rid of procrastination is the only surefire way to improve time management, and unfortunately, human beings are very creative when it comes to procrastination.
Procrastination is unavoidable, no matter how much planning, goal-setting, or list-making you do. In fact, this is an issue that all methods of improving time management skills face. Without adequate self-control, no time management strategy will ever succeed. The best way to improve time management skills, then, is to build up a sufficient amount of self-control that one can follow a plan in the first place without getting distracted. Then it’s just a matter of deciding to do something and doing it.