Time Management
Ah, time and space. Two quantities the meaning of which we tend to believe we know, yet if questioned too deeply about them our supposed understanding begins to unravel, giving way to a combination of confusion and wonderment. I suspect we all have an intrinsic understanding of time and space, but it is, no doubt, an understanding different from that of an astrophysicist. That is just fine, because today, we will talk about one of those quantities, time, in the context of business.
Digressing for a moment, it is interesting that we tend to feel we have too much time when we are bored and not enough time when we have to accomplish something. If we are given to procrastination, we might feel we have both too little and too much time, almost at the same time. Ugh!
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. In business, we often have to accomplish a series of tasks in order to produce and sell products and services. The performance of these tasks occupies something called time, which we tend to measure in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. If we can accomplish something in hours that takes someone else days to do and we can do it at the same or better level of quality, workwise we will be ahead.
How can we do our work in a time efficient way, thereby allowing us to do more in less time than our competition? The answer my friends comes down to time management. The better we organize our time, the more things we can accomplish and the more profitable we can help our business become.
The first thing we have to do in order to manage our time well is to eliminate procrastination. If we continue putting things off until that figurative tomorrow, eventually we will have so many things to do tomorrow that there will be no way we will ever get them done. When we cannot meet deadlines in business, ultimately we lose work, lose customers and decrease our profitability. Consequently, concept one is this: Do not procrastinate.
Assuming we are committed to not procrastinating, the next thing we can do to improve our management of time is to make lists. At the end of each work day, we can make a list of things we must accomplish the following day, listing those tasks from most important to least important. This will help organize our day. Concept two: Make lists.
If we do not procrastinate and we make lists of tasks we must accomplish, in order of importance, we will be well on our way to efficient time management. We might not have an astrophysicist’s understanding of time, but we will become masters of using the time we have.
Image courtesy of [Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
*Authors note: You might see this column pop up online in a newspaper, under the name Both Sides. I am publishing this column here first at CYInterview.com. For a bunch of years, I have been writing newspaper columns. Since my columns have received a good response on CYInterview, I thought I would share it with you. Hope you enjoy.
You can reach me with your questions and comments at Jay@CYinterview.com Like today’s column? Check back frequently.