Time Manegement

So I have decided to write this bog about the upcoming week which I am about to have. I am going on a two week vacation while I am a full time student working on graduate courses. Immediately the thought of this idea makes me cringe, just knowing that I will somehow have to find the time to complete schoolwork while on vacation makes me feel so stressed. It would be easy to take a semester off, but I have goals to accomplish and taking time off is not what I had in mind.

 Stress is something that has become normal to me since I have been a full time worker, student, parent, fitness fanatic, and avid NY Mets baseball team fan; recently I also took on the duty of being a t-ball coach. So as anyone can imagine with all of that on my plate stress cannot be far away, because I have such a busy schedule I have had to find a way to cram all this in while still getting the right amount of sleep in every day.

I like to think that I am fairly good at keeping track of all of my daily objectives and I also believe that my time management skills are definitely good enough to get me by. Now even though I am currently successful with my time management, being the person that I am I have to ask myself “can I get better at time management?” The answer to that question is yes; after reading this week’s assignment I was glad to see that I would learn another useful skill which I will be able to use throughout the rest of my life.

So in general I do believe that I have good time management skills and so far they have helped me succeed; but as I said before there is always room for improvement. One of the new techniques which I would like to adapt into my weekly routine is one which probably my professor would not be the happiest about but I can see the importance in mastering this skill. The skill which I am talking about is to “read selectively” (Whetton and Cameron pg. 125), by reading selectively I am reading the way that an individual would usually read a newspaper, and that is to skim through parts of it and reading what is most important. Up to this point I have tried my best to read what I am assigned but I think that if I can get good at this technique I will be able to save myself at least a couple of hours’ worth of work.  If I can reduce a couple of hours’ worth of work per week I know that I will be able to lower my already high stress levels which I will be faced with while on vacation.

The next area which I will attempt to improve my time management skills will be an area which I usually drive myself crazy with; I need to “have a place or everything and keep everything in its place” (Whetton and Cameron pg.125). The one area where I lose so much useless time is looking for random things in my house, this is something which I really need to work on. I know that it might seem like a very minuet task to accomplish, but working on this technique can save me at least thirty minutes a day. I honestly believe that if I added all of the time which I spend a day looking for items which I have misplaced it would total at least over two hours a week and a whole lot of less stress which I would have to deal with when I am rushing out of my house.

Last but not least my third technique which I will use to improve my time management and decrease my stress levels will be to “do something productive while I wait” (Whetton and Cameron pg.126). This is essential to me making up time when I feel that I do not have it. This week I have used this technique and assured that I finish some of my weekly assignments during down times at my job so that I can get ahead of my weekly assignments. This is proving to be very useful as I know that over the next two weeks my access to the internet and a computer will be very limited while I am on the road. Finding time during which I do not have during the week is essential to my success and I truly believe that my stress levels would be even higher were it not for all of the extra time that I have taken advantage of since reading my text.

I believe that there are many techniques which can help a manager be successful, time management in my opinion ranks amongst the highest. Too many times I have felt like much of America where my life is spinning out of control and I no longer find the “me” time which I used to have during my early and carefree 20’s. I know that my life has changed over the last half decade but that does not mean that my stress levels need to increase. I believe that with the proper management tools and techniques I can gain control of my life once again, it just takes a bit of knowledge, practice, and time management.

Reference:

Whetten, D., & Cameron, K. (2011). Developing management skills (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.