Principles of Time Management

Time is one of the most difficult resources to manage. You can not take back what is already lost, you can not renew the times that you missed. Moreover, it is one of the measures that all men are created equal because everyone is just given 60 minutes in an hour and 24 hours a day. In our fast paced world where everything seems to run ahead of you and you just have to chase time after time to accomplish things, you need a real good time management.

Ecclesiastes chapter 3 in the Bible talks about time for everything. “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven,” states in the first verse. This chapter alone teaches or urges people to set a time for everything to better manage time. There are a lot time management principles that we can suggest to a person however, it would be up to the individual to make the principles work.

Dr. Jan Yager (1999) outlined seven principles in the book “The 7 Principles of Creative Time Management.

” These include: Being active not reactive, setting goals, prioritizing actions, keeping focus, creating realistic deadlines, doing it NOW and balancing life. The D-O-I-T-N-O-W Principle states the following:

Divide and conquer what you have to do. Break big tasks into little tasks and give each part of that task a realistic deadline.

Organize your materials, how you will do it.

Ignore interruptions that are annoying distractions

Take the time to learn how to do things yourself.

Now, not tomorrow. Don’t procrastinate.

Opportunity is knocking. Take advantage of opportunities.

Watch out for time gobblers. Keep track of, and in control of, how much time you spend on the Internet, reading and sending e-mails, watching TV, or talking on the phone.

Before you know how to manage your time, you should first know what time is it. It is not telling the time in your watch but knowing the right thing to do at the right and proper time. However, you should also get a sense of time by tracking your watch. You can take control of your whole day if you know what time it is and what you should be doing on those times. Other than you good watch, you should still use other tool. One of which is a planner. Sometimes you can not memorize everything that you need to do in a day or in a week. Sometimes, you can not know if you have already done one job if you do have your list and you may result in doing it again; thus wasting your time. Grab a planner and make you checklist for the day. A planner use wisely will help you keep track your activities and help you evaluate regarding having balance. When you keep track on all your activities, you have a way to evaluate throughout the week and make it better if necessary.

If you have the tools above and you still have the problem in managing your time, you need to identify the problem. Do you procrastinate? Do you always entertain interruption and waste your time in unproductive work?

            Time management may be difficult but as the Bible says, make time for everything. Do not focus on how to manage