COACHING
Time Management:
How Good Are You At
It?
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
I
t was just the other day when we were
wishing each other Happy New Year.
The ushering in of a new decade was
met with pomp and cheer by many people
all round the world. The spirit of hope and
goodwill seemed to permeate though the
society. And yet, by the time you read this
article, it will probably be February 2020.
Where does time go? Has time started
moving faster? Is there more to do than
usual? I can bet you have asked yourself
these questions.
Allow me to ask some more questions. We
know that every day we have 24 hours. Out
of those 24 hours, 7- 8 on average is spent
sleeping. Of course there are the outliers,
some people can manage to survive on 4
hours sleep and others would need close
to 10 hours of good sleep. So the time we
spent sleeping, we can’t quite do anything
else with it.
Now why is it that some people manage
to get so much done on any given day
whereas others struggle to complete the
most basic of tasks? Generally the answer
is - they have more time. More time? We
are all allocated the same amount of hours
in a day.
Time is one of the unique resources that
cannot be saved. Once gone, you can
never get it back. But it is interesting
to note that many people do not value
time. Occasionally they don’t value
other people’s time. In the busy world of
today, and with technology helping us to
organize our lives, one would expect it to
be easier to keep time.
Keeping time is also a challenge. You
agree to start a meeting at 10:00am and
at 10:15am there is no one in the room
because everyone assumes it will start late.
This results in everything on the schedule
getting delayed. You promise to meet
your friend at 4:00pm for a cup of tea.
You arrive 2 hours late. Is this poor time
keeping or bad time management?
Time management and time keeping
aren’t the same even though there is a
relationship between the two terms. Time
management has been defined by many
authors but most of them agree that it
is a planning process that helps one to
organize and plan activities and allocate
the right amount of time for each of the
specific activities. Therefore, it stands to
reason that if one does not plan their time
properly, it is unlikely they will be able to
keep time.
Go to sleep? But this will mean even less
time for things that need to get done! Sounds
counter- productive but it has been shown
that getting sufficient rest makes one much
more productive when they tackle the rele-
vant tasks. So relax and rest. It is just what
the doctor ordered.
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Why bother to learn the skill of time
management? Well according to an article
published by Sandeep Kashyap in 2019
on ProofHub.Com, there are several
benefits of time management especially at
the workplace. Kashyap argues that good
time management will result in being
productive and efficient at work. That in
turn would mean better quality of work
that is delivered on time.
Sounds like a dream for any employer.
This would also mean less stress for the
employee and more time to engage in
leisure activities thus improving one’s
quality of life. That is a good thing for the
employee. After all, life is short and one
needs to spend every minute wisely and on
things that make you happy.
Here are some tips that can help you with
time management.
Prioritize
We all have so many things to do every
day. Sometimes writing a to-do list can
help. Other times when looking at the
list, it all feels overwhelming. Pick the key
things you need to accomplish and give
them top priority. Doing the easiest things
on your list doesn’t always mean you have
completed the most important tasks.
Single Tasking
The more familiar word is multitasking. It
is even a frequent joke that men cannot
multitask. But this has been shown to
be very detrimental to productivity with
some research indicating that productivity
goes down by almost 40% when the brain