Time management! How many times we must have heard those words in many different ways. Teachers give us time-tables. Parents give lectures how to do things on time. Everybody, who is ‘concerned’, wants us to learn to manage time for ‘our own good’. What is managing time? According to teachers and parents, it is getting up on time and studying the rest of the day. Yeah right! What do they know?

Unfortunately, for some of us the nagging of our parents about ‘studying or else,’ came true when we barely scraped past our exams. That’s when we realized we should do something about it – only to forget about it later.

It is all in your mind.

What we did learn from the past is what we do and most of what we don’t honestly depends upon us. It is time we realize how we react to certain situations including the suggestions we accept and the decisions we put away for later. Try to learn for yourself why you do it. Maybe, it is something you don’t like to do or when you were presented with the situation the time was not right and you made an impulsive decision to procrastinate.

Know how your body clock works. Watching the clock that keeps time is only part of the whole management process. However, also remember that the world does not revolve around you. There are things you will have to do to match the time for other things like school/college and lunch/dinner time etc.

Write it down

Make a record of how you spend time throughout the day. Document everything including the time taken to do all those things you do. Segregate the productive activities and the unproductive ones, then decide which things you would like to keep and the activities you feel can be thrown out of the list or maybe do it not so frequently.

After that make a list of the things that you need to do. Yes. The ones that spell study, get up, revise, and exercise. Although some people may have a small list which may or may not include all the activities included above and some may have a problem that the to-do list is so big it is unmanageable. Remember that everything need not be done in a day.

At the same time always ask yourself the question what you want to do and does the item on the list help you in achieving your objective. If the list is long then prioritize. Prioritize even if the list is small. The things that need to be done are important. The activities which you feel will add value to your mission need to be notched down a little.

Make a time table

Did someone suggest that time-tables do not work. Well, he was wrong! It is always better to plan ahead than arrive at your destination and then worry about the next step. Now that you know what needs to be done, you should decide that it needs to be done – come-what-may.

Writing down your time table like an appointment book is a good idea. This way you appoint a start time and end time to you activities.

Stick to it

You have only 24 hours to achieve what you set out to do today. So adhering to the time-table is important. Add interruption time, because there would things that are not in your control, but may crop up and you would have to address without jeopardizing your time schedule. So put in the breaks. Not generous ones but necessary ones. Try to put in all distractions into this.

Nobody is suggesting any priorities to you and nobody is telling you what to do. It is just you and your goal in life. As someone said ‘dreams don’t work unless you do’.