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Importance of Time Management in Daily Life

We see many people around us who spend their time in a frenzy of activity but achieve very little because they are not concentrating on the right things.

They are perpetually busy but it does not necessarily mean that they make optimum utilization of their time. Hence there is a great need for effective Time Management in our lives today.

We keep hearing the word "Busy" a lot. There are two kinds of busy, chaotic, disorganized busy and calm effective busy.

It goes without saying that being the latter helps to pack in more productivity in your work.

We constantly hear the refrain that we do not know where the time goes. Whether you are an executive, a student or a homemaker, you need to achieve more in every minute of the day and to enjoy each task that you take up.

Improving our "effectiveness Quotient" calls for mastery of basic time management skills. We will be well on our way to the top if we know how to squeeze the most out of even a minute managing time.

Time can be divided into three aspects for applying techniques of managing it; biological time that pertains to body functions. Social time pertains to self, family and society and professional time pertaining time spent at work.

It is essential to maintain equilibrium between these three aspects. Any imbalance may prove to be detrimental to one’s physical and mental health and can adversely affect the individual in the long run. It is essential, therefore, to allocate one’s time in balanced manner to the extent possible to all these three aspects.

Biological time pertains to sleep, food, bathroom, physical exercise etc. As these activities have to be performed every day, there is a need to adopt the mean of moderation among them and each should consume optimum required time.

Second is the social time that pertains to family time, time to one self and social time. Strong family ties and a happy domestic life are the foundations of success in both personal and professional life. One must spend some time with one’s family every day and to co-ordinate activities of family members. Similarly one should give time to oneself for introspection, reading and other hobbies. Since we live in a society, we have to attend various social events, like weddings, religious functions etc. Such social obligations may require some portion of your time. It is desirable to give time to your family, yourself and to social engagement but again optimum moderation is required in managing time for all such activities.

The most important of all the time management is the professional time. In this aspect, one has to manage time during the fixed working hours. Your aim should be to optimally utilize the available time for maximum productivity. It is, therefore, essential to plan one’s work on daily basis and time taken to carry out the work in an efficient manner. Also identify the ‘time wasters’ and make efforts to eliminate or reduce them. This will help in a great deal to increase the efficiency of your work and you will be cynosure of all eyes for producing maximum output during the given time.

The first thing to bear in mind is to question whether you have a personal sense of time or a time log. This helps you to keep track of how you spend each hour. There is a way to do this.

Divide each day for a period of two weeks into one hour intervals and jot down what you do in them. You can sub divide the activities under such headings as biological time, social time and professional time.

At the end of the week, examine your time log of time spent on business meetings, writing, phone calls, making, reading, time spent with the family etc. This will tell the story of your daily life activities.

What you may find is that very little time goes into top priority activities that are professional time and more into activities which can be called as waste of time, such as phone calls, coffee breaks, chatting with friends etc.

Now it is the time to analyze what activities is a waste of time and what is useful utilization of time and you need more time for such purposes. Then try to cut down time spent on useless activities if you cannot stop doing them altogether and concentrate on increasing the productive part of the time.

Once you have prioritized your time well with efficient time management, you will find your efficiency level has arisen to greater heights and you will be an achiever in the end.