Time gives you the ability to do all you need to achieve your goals and enjoy life. Time management is a key aspect to consider in your every day life. But, if you are still in doubt; Is it time management important?
In this post we'll give a brief overview of what time management is, the importance of using your wisely and basic tools to apply it in your daily life. Ready to hit it?
What´s Time Management?
Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities (source)
Time management is important to increase effectiveness, productivity and efficiency of your daily activities.
It´s about using your time wisely and perform the same activities in a shorter length of time. In the long term, time management can help you accomplish bigger and more ambitious goals and activities.
Time is aided by a range of skills, tools and techniques. The implementation of these will improve time effectiveness and productivity.
Ground Principles of Time Management
The strategies used here depend on your lifestyle, actions and behaviours. However, there's a common consensus of 'musts' to follow.
Create an effective environment
Your surroundings influence your actions. If you are able to create an effective environment, it will be easier to manage your time efficiently and be more productive on your daily activities.
Start by putting the phone on silence mode, setting up periods of time of 30 min divided by 5min break to do your activity (Pomodoro technique), and avoid any other distraction for those 30min.
Set Your Priorities
If you are aware of your priorities, you'll be able to manage your time more efficiently. Set a priority list and make sure you do your top priorities earlier on the day.
Once you have the priority list ready, you can now divide your time efficiently to perform all the activities you need to do.
Make it a habit
Self discipline is key to achieve a high degree of time management. If you make something a habit, you can do it daily without losing motivation.
As J. Clear refers to in his book Atomic Habits, automatization of an activity makes it easier to convert it into a habit.
Habits are your friends when it comes to managing your time. They leave less room to procrastinate and fill up our days to use time wisely.
Is Time Management Important?
Time management increases efficiency, effectiveness and productivity.
It gives you the tools to use your time wisely and achieve more in a shorter period of time.
A better sense of your time makes you happier and more satisfied with your achievements (study)
Are you managing your time wisely? If not, what can you do to improve that?
When Is Time Management Important?
- Improves academic performance
- Produces better project outcomes
- Reduces your stress
- Boosts self confidence
- Shapes your "mode of working"
- Boosts satisfaction and happiness
- Better work-life balance
- Reach ambitious goals
- Prevents procrastination
- Trains your discipline
Improves Academic Performance
Being a student requires of a lot of organization, focus, and discipline.
Loads of homework, studying for exams, social life, extra-curricular activities,... and all of that with the hope to retain the basic knowledge to pass the subject.
The higher the degree of time management, the better the scholar grades (study).
The group with management skills also reduced anxiety and stress levels and found a better balance between studies and day-to-day life.
+ Is time management important for academic performance?
- Yes. It leads to higher grades, better life balance, less anxiety and stress and more awareness over your time.
Produces Better Project Outcomes
Better time management results in better project outcomes. Those that manage their time well will produce a better outcome than those that do not.
You can fully focus on your project during the time frame you have given on a certain day.
The time set to work on the project will be enough to make progress, improve, and move onto the next activity of the day
+ Is managing your time important for project outcomes?
- Definitely. It improves time efficiency, motivation to work hard during a certain period of time, and allows you to finish before the deadline to have margin of error to keep improving.
Reduces Stress Levels
We leave surrounded by stress and anxiety. Projects and studies can get really stressful if you don't know how to manage them. Work keeps building up and it seems as if it's never going to end.
When you know how to manage your time, you are more aware of your activities and the progress in general. In this study, better management skills decreased stress and anxiety levels (study).
Having more control over the process improves stress levels, efficiency and ability to react and make changes to keep improving.
+ Is time management important to reduce stress and anxiety?
- Yes. Research has found time management skills to reduce stress and anxiety on school students with high work loads.
Boosts your self confidence
Self Confidence gives you the aptitudes you need to reach goals.
Time management trains your discipline and aptitudes. It makes you realize what your capabilities are and who you want to become.
Managing your time will boost your self confidence to achieve your goals.
In this study, they found a correlation between time management and self confidence (study). Managing your time improved self confidence on academic performance, and self confidence reciprocally led to better time control.
+ Is managing your time important to boost self confidence?
- Yes. It improves self confidence by training your discipline and putting the priority list on the table.
Shapes your 'mode of working'
Your mode of working depends on your focus and effort during working time.
Time management can shape your mode of working. It determines how you work and improves your time efficiency.
If you are able to manage your time, you'll be in a favourable situation to work better(study).
If you can build a consistent routine, you time will be more efficient and you'll get more things done in a shorter period of time.
+ Is time management important for work?
- Yes, it builds a routine and makes your work more efficient. It also helps you shaping your 'mode of working'.
Boosts Satisfaction and Happiness
How many times have you felt like you had thrown your day out by not doing anything useful?
Time management makes you happier. It rises your levels of satisfaction and awareness of the improvements you are doing over time.
In this study, those with better management skills said to be happier and more satisfied at work (study).
+ Is time management important to be happy?
Yes. It makes you happier and more satisfied. It gives you a better insight of your improvements and development over time.
Finds a Balance on your Life
Work can be your 24/7 life if you don't know how to manage your time wisely (E.g. Having to work at home because you haven't finished your daily tasks).
Time management skills can help you finishing your tasks on time to go home with no more work to do.
It´s all about finding a right work-life balance. During this test performed with music educators, they found a correlation between time management skills and work-life balance (study).
+ Is time management important for your life balance?
Yes. It enables you to use your time wisely and improve your work-life balance.
Helps you reach Ambitious Goals
Ambitious goals require of discipline, motivation, and time management.
If you want something big, you need to work alike and make efforts of the same size as your goal.
If you are able to manage your time wisely, you'll also be able to organize your activities better, use your time more efficiently and have a broader range to make mistakes and be able to correct them.
+ Is time management important to reach ambitious goals?
Yes. Ambitious goals require of a lot of effort, dedication, discipline and time management.
Prevents procrastination
Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. Time management provides you with enough skills to reduce and avoid procrastination.
Organizing your day gives you a better overview of what you have to do at each moment. This forces you to do everything at the time period you have allocate it at.
+ Is time management important to prevent procrastination?
Yes, it gives you the skills to reduce and/or remove totally procrastination in your life.
Trains Your Discipline
Discipline, together with motivation and confidence, are three basics of personal development.
Time management helps you build your self discipline. Organization and discipline go hand by hand.
The better time management, the more discipline and willpower to complete your daily 'to-do'. Again, this is about being aware of what you have to do at each moment.
+ Is time management important to be disciplined?
- Yes. It's a great tool to boost your discipline and willpower.
CONCLUSION
Time management is the ability to plan and control the time spent on specific activities. It increases effectiveness, productivity and efficiency of your daily activities.
During this post, we reviewed 10 reasons why time management is important. To improve study performance, reduce stress and anxiety levels, reach a better work-life balance, be happier and more satisfied with your life... a real game changer.
