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Time Management

We all manage our time, usually starting with our alarm clock to wake us up in the morning. However, once we are up each person has their own priorities about what needs doing and how important it is that it gets done. We start by having our mum to be our time management organiser to see we get to school on time and get our homework done. It is when we have to do these things ourselves that we realise that we have not been taught a system for doing it effectively. The effective management of our own time is an important factor in being successful in anything, and there are lots of systems and tips that help.

Categories : Being Organised : Setting Goals : Time Management ::

The bad news is time flies; The good news is you're the pilot. - Michael Althsuler

Time management covers a wide range of ideas and techniques, and began as a technique for maximising the use of working time to complete tasks. The ideas have extended to include personal time, blurring the distinction between personal and work time, and finding that the same basic ideas worked for both, as a 'To Do List' has much in common with a 'Shopping List'.

Parkinson's Law states that 'Work expands to fill the time available for it's completion.' This idea was published in 1958 by Cyril Northcote Parkinson as a study of the inefficiencies of civil service bureaucracy. This is still an idea to be remembered in any organisation and applies equally to each of us as individuals. Time management wants to fit the time needed to the task much better.

The 80/20 Rule or The Pareto Principle is an idea that 80% of the results are achieved in 20% of your time. This idea of diminishing returns is used in time management to show that most of the achievement in a task is achieved in the early stages, and the more time you devote to lt to smaller the returns become. This idea was first discovered by Vilfredo Pareto in 1906 who found that 80% of Italy's wealth was owned by 20% of the population. This skewed distribution has been found to apply to many systems.

Using our goals to prioritize our tasks is the most complete way to look at time management. This ensures we don't just get lost in the task of doing and crossing things off our lists, but we are actually going in the direction we want in our life.

Time management approaches can be categorised into four generation types, according to Steven Covey:

Reminders based on clocks, watches, alarms and computer reminders
Planning & Preparing based on calendars, appointment books, and tasks
Planning, Prioritizing & Controlling based on personal organisers based on paper, computer or mobile phones
Efficient & Proactive systems based on achieving long term goals

Getting Things Done by David Allen has come to be regarded as the standard text on personal and business organisation, productivity and time management. It is the book you should read if you want to gain control over and organise the tasks in your life. The principles apply equally to the busy mum or the stressed executive. It starts with looking at your goals, drills down to organize your tasks by getting them out of your head and into a system, and then organizes the system.

Lifehacking is the latest buzzword in the time management sphere. It is based on a 'Life Hack' used by computer programmers to cut through information overload and organize their data, but is now used for anything that solves an everyday problem in a novel way. These ideas are now popularised in the blogs for Lifehack, LifeHacker and 43 Folders.