Have you ever said to yourself, there just never seems to be enough time in the day for me to get all of my tasks done? Well the problem is, tomorrow you are not going to get any more time than you had today. So what’s the solution to getting the things you need to get done, done?
Well that’s time management. But what do we mean by time management? That’s a term that is used over and over again, what does it really mean?
Perhaps the best tip I can give you in regards to time management is this:
When you have a task in hand, ask yourself which category does this task fit into? For example is this an important and urgent task? Is this an important but not an urgent task? Is this a not important but urgent task? Or is this an unimportant and not urgent task? Let’s simplify this.
Say for example, I have a task in hand that is very important and is urgent. I need to take care of that task immediately for example if my boss ask me that he needs a report in ten minutes
or if I have an assignment in school that’s due tomorrow, that would certainly be an important and urgent task.
Now let’s look at the important and not urgent task. Many of our tasks are important but there are just not urgent. Perhaps I have an assignment that’s due two or three days from now, do I really need to start that right now? Most of the time we will, simply because we’re using the important and not urgent tasks to avoid doing what we know we really need to do.
The next task is the unimportant but urgent tasks. These are things that are not really important but are critical or so we think. For example do we really need to give our immediate attention to say, talking on the phone? Or finding out what our friends are doing on Facebook?
True that may be important to you but is it so important that you need to put off doing an assignment that you have due tomorrow? Or cleaning your room?
Finally the unimportant and not urgent tasks. These are things that fill our day time after time. The unimportant and not urgent tasks are usually the things we enjoy doing. These are things that we would put ahead of everything else and this is what waste our time.
So the next time that you have a task at hand, ask yourself which category does this task fit into? Is it important and urgent? Is it important but not urgent? Is it unimportant but urgent? Or is it unimportant and not urgent? Perhaps if you can clarify which category that tasks fit into, you will find that you would be able to get the most out of the time you have each day.
Thanks for reading.
Aug 4, 2009 at 08:03:33
If you’d like a tool for managing your time and projects, you can use this application inspired by David Allen’s GTD:
http://www.Gtdagenda.com
You can use it to manage and prioritize your goals, projects and tasks, set next actions and contexts, use checklists, schedules and a calendar.
A mobile version is available too.
Aug 4, 2009 at 19:00:34
Thanks for that resource Dan. I’ve never heard of this tool and I’m sure it’ll be quite useful. How long have you been using it?
Sep 5, 2009 at 16:59:15
Hey good stuff…keep up the good work!
Sep 7, 2009 at 00:47:48
Cool site, love the info.
Sep 7, 2009 at 19:10:18
Excellent site, keep up the good work
Sep 24, 2009 at 01:36:14
Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!
Sep 30, 2009 at 06:40:12
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking your feeds too now, Thanks.
Sep 30, 2009 at 09:47:01
Generally I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this post really forced me to do so, Excellent post!