It’s time to manage time wisely

For many of us, September signals a time that in many ways is the beginning of a new year.

For people involved in education as a vocation, this is the beginning of a school year and the return to the job. For youngsters and adolescents, the start of school ends three months of vacation. For parents with children in school, routines, car pools and extracurricular activities soon will fill their weekly calendar.

Many of find this a good time to look closely at how we spend our time. Perhaps we need to reassess our goals, priorities and direction in life.

During the summer it became easy to change our routines. We let the children stay up a little later, we prepared meals with a less rigid routine, we took off from work early to engage in a favorite recreational activity and enjoy the long daylight hours. Generally summer was less urgent and more relaxed.

If you wish to reassess the way you are spending your time, you may want to look at some leading time wasters that researchers have found interfere with efficient use of time.

 Not surprising to many of you, the telephone with its disruptions and interruptions is one of the most frequent sources of time mismanagement. If you are in a business, try to let someone besides yourself serve as the “screener” so you can become involved in important tasks and carry them through to completion.

For those managing a household, a simple, “I am busy now, may I call you back?” often minimizes the disruption and enables the completion of home tasks.

 Lack of priorities and the inability or unwillingness to set deadlines often is a source of time mismanagement. An often-used technique is to write down how we spend our time. We can thus increase our awareness of ineffective use of time.

Making a “to-do” list sets priorities and goals. Sticking to the list can increase effective time management. If a trip to a store across town is needed to pick up items, calling ahead to see if those items are available saves time and energy.

 Attending or conducting a meeting without an agenda or without time limits is a great time waster. Having an effective chairman keep the meeting on schedule increases the effectiveness of time spent. Sending out written memorandums in lieu of meetings can save much time if feedback from a group is not needed.

 Learning to delegate responsibility and communicating needs to the members of the organization, asking them to carry out goals, can cut down on a lot of wasted time.

 Setting aside free time for recreation and rest can help make better use of scheduled work time. Having all our time scheduled as work time can produce feelings of fatigue and burnout.

 Perhaps one of the biggest time wasters is the inability to say no. Trying to please everyone, overcommitment and overscheduling can lead to feelings of frustration and psychological distress.

 The tendency to consider too many things as crises often leads to poor time management. Learning to tell the difference between “real” problems and the problems that can wait is a necessity for all of us.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1987