DO YOU NEED MORE TIME?“Kill time and you will kill your career” B.C. Forbes
“But, I just don’t have enough time” – how often have you said this phrase? As long as you are really willing to do something about, your problem has a solution. All you need is will power and certain techniques. With these, you will have enough time to do all
important activities in your work will still have time to relax. The secret of having enough time is not killing yourself working 18 hours daily. The objective should be to work more intelligently, not harder. You can’t save time, only use it well. Here are some techniques to give you some extra time:
TO DO LIST The main secret of time control is a technique widely known but used by very few persons: to-do list. The procedure is very simple. Every day, first thing you should do at office is to write down all activities you have to do. Take your time to think them out carefully. List all activities, both short and long-range. It may seem strange to see “start MBA” along with “send meeting memo”. However, if you think about it, you don’t want to control only day’s activities, but your life as well. If you don’t set yourself goals to where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else.
Once you have your activities written down, review and classify them:
“A” for those with highest priority. “B” for those of medium priority. “C” for those nice-to-have but not important.
Once this has been done, review your list again and assign a number to each activity by importance until you have A-1, A-2, … The following step is critical in this procedure. Most persons, after looking at their A-1 activity, decide to get a cup of coffee or chat with somebody, or do one of “C” activities because it looks more appealing at that moment. The natural reaction at seeing a task to perform is very human reaction of “I’ll do it later” The will power to “do it now” or “do it later” is what distinguishes those persons who lack time and those who have enough time to reach their goals and enjoy life.
WILL POWER
The problem at this stage is lack of will power. The first step to solve this problem is to recognize it and ask, “What am I trying to avoid?” The answers could be:
1.Fear to make a mistake – If this is problem, you should ask “by how much would I reduce probability of making a mistake if I wait?” – usually not very much. Your attitude should be positive and you should regard your mistakes as an opportunity to learn.
2.Postpone less agreeable tasks – but really, isn’t it better to do it now and get rid of it, like taking a bad-tasting medicine.
3.Set priorities every day – if problem is trying to do too much, learn to say “no”. Learn to set date for every goal, tell everybody about these dates, and then meet them.
The decision is yours. Having will power or not, leads you to one of these routes:
1.Do that interesting project you have wanted to do (work-related or personal). Also you will be able to enjoy things since you have satisfaction of knowing you have finished day’s “To-do´s” and are really controlling your time. Or else,
2.Spend rest of day doing To-Do´s “C” with anguish of knowing there is that A-1 waiting for you and that “I don´t have time”. The result is you don´t do what you should, and you are not at peace knowing there is an urgent task that is “urgent” and you haven´t done it.
