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TIME MANAGEMENT BASICS
By Jan Christensen
There are a few truisms about time management that are good to learn, and if we’ve already heard of them, to re-visit every so often to see what we might do to make better use of our time.
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The first step is to find out how we are using time. It helps to keep track of every chunk for two weeks. Ten minutes to wipe down the bathroom sink and clean the toilet. An hour to work on a pet project. Forty-five minutes to start dinner and get it on the table. And half an hour to eat it, then how long to clean up afterward? You get the idea. If you don’t know precisely where the time is going, it will be very difficult to manage it.
Next list all the things you have to do every day. Now that you know how long they take, is there any way you can cut back on some and eliminate others? If so, try to do that.
How many hours do you sleep every night? (You kept track of that, too, right?) Add up all hours sleeping and on the things you have to do every day and subtract from twenty-four hours.
How much time is left? That’s your discretionary time. Just like a discretionary amount of money, how you spend that time will impact your life in many ways.
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You get to decide if anything you do, from cooking gourmet dinners to watching two movies every night, is the best use of your time. You get to decide if you
want to cut the time you do certain things—maybe watch only one movie a night and only make gourmet dinners three times a week instead of seven.
want to cut the time you do certain things—maybe watch only one movie a night and only make gourmet dinners three times a week instead of seven.
What would be your perfect life? Only you can get it near perfect. (I don’t think anyone has a perfect life, do you?) Want to write a novel? Give up anything that’s taking one hour of your time every day and work on that novel. Want to get all your photographs sorted and put into albums? Find an hour a day to work on that. Want to get organized—your closets, your kitchen, your bureau drawers? Think about how quickly you could get all that done if you spent just one hour a day doing it. Or half an hour. Or even just ten minutes.
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There’s a reason we call it spending time—just like spending money. There’s only a limited amount of each. Managing both is helped by jotting down numbers and figuring the best way to use either money or time.
Just be aware that life is going to throw stuff at you that needs your immediate attention, and those goals will have to be put on hold for a while. And as soon as you can after the crisis or even wonderful event is over, get back on track to making your day-to-day life as perfect as you can.
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Published novels are: Sara’s Search, Revelations, Organized to Death, Perfect Victim, Blackout, Buried Under Clutter and most recently, A Broken Life. She's had over sixty short stories appear in various places over the last dozen years. She also writes a series of short stories about Artie, a NY burglar who gets into some very strange situations while on the job.
Learn more at her website: www.janchristensen.com
Buy links for Latest Book: A Broken Life:
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