HEALTH CORNER

 

Finding Time to Manage Time

 

David San Filippo, Ph.D.

 

In today’s society we move through our lives at the pace of our technologies.  In our ancestor’s days it took weeks or months to receive a correspondence from someone.  Today we are bombarded by the rate of the receipt of information.  We receive faxed or emailed responses to our inquiries and others expect us to respond as rapidly.   With the advent of the internal combustion engine our ability to get from one place to another rose from the pace of walking, riding animals, and using the wind to move our ships to engines that move us faster and faster from one place to another across the ground, the water, and the air.  The miss management of time can contribute to our levels of daily stress.  The following suggestions may help you find time to manage your time.  However, before I begin, let me confess, and my wife Lynn can verify, I am a much better teacher of these suggestions than a practitioner.  Finding time to manage your time takes consistent practice.

 

To begin, here are the results of a study of how the average person spends her/his time:

 

Eating, Sleeping, & Grooming   74.0 hours/week           Talking                 4.3 hours/week

Working                                   37.0                             Housecleaning                  3.3

Watching Television                  15.1                             Reading                            2.8

Commuting                               10.0                             Sports/Outdoors               2.2

Shopping                                  6.0                             Paying Bills                       1.7

Visiting                                     4.9                             Gardening/Animal Care  1.0

Cooking                                    4.5                             Thinking/Relaxing               1.0

(I’m sure this average person was not a Mom with children to care for!)

 

We have many things that impact the 24 hours per day that we each have every day.  These “time bandits” manage to throw off our management of time no matter how hard we try to manage our time.  Some of these bandits are:  procrastination, telephone calls, drop-in people, unexpected activities, disorganization, and unclear action plans.

 

In order to better manage your time you may want to take these steps to identify what is occupying your time. 

·        Review how much time is spent on each activity a day. 

·        Keep a record of activities for 1-2 weeks.

·        Is your the current management of time consistent with your objectives?

·        Identify time bandits.

·        Identify who consumes your time?

 

Once you have done this analysis you may want to break your tasks up into workable segments following the guide of A B C.

 

A - What needs to be done immediately?

                        B - What can be done in this week?

                        C - What can be done when I get the time?

 

Finally, to begin managing your time you may want to incorporate some of these ideas into your daily routine:

·        Work to break poor time habits.

·        Make time to plan to manage time.

·        Plan time daily, weekly, monthly, annually.

·        Protect against time bandits.

·        Create a To Do list and work the list.

 

Time management takes work.  It takes time to manage your time.  But once you gain control of your use of time, you may find that you have more opportunities to use your time wisely.  Remember what Jesus did in the 3 years of his earthly ministry and God did in 7 days!