During my studies I struggled to balance my university responsibilities, work commitments, and social life. There just never seemed to be enough time! Time management is one of the most important skills I needed to learn. It is so easy to feel overwhelmed when you haven't spent time planning and laying everything out that needs to happen and regaining control over your life again, enabling you to have a balanced life an to live your best life. It is important to manage your time effectively because when you waste time on social media, for example, you’re not just neglecting your duties, but you are creating a possibility that you might fail and lose control over your life. Therefore, learning to manage your time like an adult and teaching yourself the needed discipline to stick with your planning is an important skill to develop.
What are some of the key principles of time management?
How then do we focus on what is important and manage our time like leaders rather than just going with the flow? Firstly, we need to prioritise what is important to us. Each of us have different priorities and therefore each of us will have a different schedule. There is no one size fits all. To prioritise we need to write down what is important, not what is urgent. You can use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix to distinguish between what is important and what is urgent.
Secondly, we need to plan! There is an old saying that says: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail!"
You need to focus on allocating time for everything that you must do, spend time on your priorities and plan to relax as well. But all this planning and setting your priorities straight means nothing if you don’t see the fruits of your labour. Therefore you need to set goals. Your goals should abide by the SMART system which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. Goals give us something to work towards and we all have important things in our lives that need to happen.
Creating your ideal week from the priorities and goals you set.
Youtuber Ali Abdaal is known for his work on optimising your life and providing insight into how you can live your best and balanced life. In one of his videos, he shares his wisdom on how you can optimise your week and work towards your ideal week, helping you live the life you want to live, not the one you're necessarily living right now. Check out his video on how to plan your ideal week (or skip ahead to a summary I have compiled for you).
I have compiled (and adjusted) a step by step guide that you can use when planning out your ideal week. I have optimised it a but for university students, but the principles still apply if you are working or running your own side hustle. We also have a weekly schedule sheet you can download and print to lay out your ideal week.
Make a list of all the things you need to do in a day. Include everything! From classes, work, study time and even showering and time for meals and some chill time.
Next to each time, list how long each will take you. For example, when setting the time for classes include an additional 10 minutes to travel to and from classes and if you’re like me, you enjoy coming home and taking a quick 5 minutes to unwind and get comfortable. Include that as well.
Prioritise your tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix. Highlight the tasks that are extremely important and work them in first. If you are still studying, work in your classes and the study time that you need to take for each module first and then focus on the extras, such as social time and weekend parties.
Now you are going to take the weekly planner and block out every task that you have listed for the amount of time that we set out for it. You can also do this online on your Google calendar and set up reminders and events that repear each week so that you can streamline the process and have reminders for when your class is/when you need to leave. It is important to include a buffer time between events as well. Life happens, your dog ran off with your shoes and your car is frozen or your roommate wants to have a heartfelt conversation right now! So it is important to have some time at hand should you need that extra 5 minutes.
review your planning every week and adjust where you might need more time, and open up slots where something did not take as long as you originally planned. Checking your progress against your SMART goals should also form part of the routine. After you've managed the dicipline to keep to your schedule. Start making it your own, create a flow of events that works for you and spend time optimising the system for your own natural rhythms. (Don't fool yourself, if you're a night person like me, you will never get used to waking up at 5 AM! Rather work until midnight and get a good 7-8 Hours of sleep!)
Tips for Staying on Track:
Discipline is one of the most valuable things we can learn ourselves when it comes to managing our time as well as taking charge of our lives! No one can do this for us and, more importantly, no one is going to take the responsibility for us. William Earnest Henley put it best in his poem Invictus: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Being adults and having the discipline to create a good life for ourselves is a skill that all of us, especially as Christians, need to develop!
Eliminate distractions by identifying and minimise distractions such as social media, interruptions or items that trigger your procrastination (we all have them, so don't even try the "I don't procrastinate..." story.) Try to optimise your work space in such a way that you don't work where you rest and vice-versa, your bed is comfortable but not productive. Delete that streaming shortcut and put your devices on Do Not Disturb.
Use tools to helo keep you on track. Utilise calendars, planners, or apps like Google Calendar, Trello, or Todoist to stay organized. I found that the best way to organise my time is to automate it. If it doesn't go on my calendar immediately, it doesn't happen. I set my reminders to inform me when I need to start packing up and leaving for an appointment, and I schedule specific tasks that need to happen in my big blocks of "Work".
Taking breaks is just as important as working hard. You can't work when you are over tired and can't even focus on what needs to be done. Personally, if I work to long at my computer my eyes start to get blurry and even trying to type further is useless. Therefore, I schedule short breaks to avoid burnout and maintain productivity.
Quick Side Note: Using methods like the Pomodoro Technique greatly helps to maintain productivity. It ensures that you have time for breathing and can be done with a simple timer on your device (or an analogue kitchen timer). Very simply put, work for 25 minutes & rest for 5 minutes.
Lastly, stay flexible! Be prepared to adjust your schedule as unexpected things come up. We can try and control, plan and organise our lives down to the second of each day, but life simply happens. We should be just as adaptable in our lives as we are disciplined with our planning and sticking to it. When a friend or family member comes to us because they are in distress, we have a duty towards them to give love and care, the scheduled plan then falls away. But everything is not a crisis. If you can. do something about it NOW, then do it, but don't neglect your work because you just heard a new story about a celebrity that did something new.
Final thoughts:
Time is one of the most valuable assets that we as humans have. How we spend it should speak to how thankful we are to God for blessing us with this time on earth, if it is a gift, why would we waste it?! Learning how to manage our time as effectively as possible and removing procrastination from our lives is one of the easiest things we can do. Use these few skills and start experimenting with your schedule. You’re not going to get it on the first try, but that is the nice thing about a weekly schedule, you get to try again next week if something doesn’t work out. Just do something to grow and better yourself each week.
Stay blessed friends.
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