Time management

Time is the most precious resource we have in life. It is the aim of all of us to use it the best way we can, both personally as professionally. We have all experienced the anxiety of the moment when we havent finished a task and its deadline is

approaching faster and faster. This anxiety, this feeling of frustration or possible lack of control over the situation (over time) is often harmful, acting as a demotivating effect or distraction. To prevent this from happening, we must make a proper management of our time, either personally or professionally. Managing your time properly, it will be enough to do everything you want and still be time left. The key piece of time management is setting of good planning. To achieve the desired goals we must first decide 'what' we want to do and then 'when' are we going to do it. To be truly effective in building this bridge between "what" and "when" we must focus our approach on the following points: - A correct definition of the objectives we want to achieve: - An overview of the way we scroll through; - A proper planning of how to get there; - And clearly define the priorities that we will attend to achieve our goals.

We then start our journey knowing and defining the objectives we want to achieve, both personally and professionally. This definition must be the most accurate and efficient possible. For that reason we should use a 'decision basis'. This 'decision basis' must have some key features: - Must be complete. - Must include all our objectives and goals. - It should be clear, should not remain doubtful about the place where we are headed.

- Must be specific, listing all our objectives and goals; - And lastly, should be practical, should be easy to interpret and editing. Moreover that we must create an overview of this whole process, for that we draw a map. This map should contain all that we have done, everything we are about to do and everything we want to do in the future. For this purpose we organize all these elements by key areas that are best suited to our reality, both personally and professionally. To do this we must ask ourselves: what do I do? What tasks should I do? What tasks would I like to do? What other tasks should I be doing? What is the work associated with these tasks? We now turn to one of the most important steps of our process of time management. This third phase is to build the real bridge between "what" and "when. In planning for "what", we do it in layers, i.e., start with the more general objectives, after, move to key areas, then to categories and finally we plan the tasks that we perform on a daily basis. Also in relation to "when" we must divide it by levels, starting with the annual planning, setting the broader goals, moving later to the monthly planning and then to weekly one. Finally we must do the daily planning. The last step, daily planning, should be as or more important than the annual planning (and the others), because, as we all know, the year is the sum of all days, as the result of an annual business is the sum of all your daily work. Thus, the daily planning should be followed more closely, to minimize the overall deviation. This step is critical to properly define time intervals for all objectives. We should remember that re-planning is always possible and, sometimes, is the best path to follow. Therefore, we should always save an extra time between our objectives to review the planning. Last but not least, the definition of priorities. This phase is especially important because it will enable us to increase our efficiency. How? Sorting our tasks according to two criteria extremely important: urgency and importance.

Picture 1 - Setting priorities

The purpose of this classification is to affect our time more efficiently, allocating our resources to the tasks with greater importance and urgency (Do it now). Then we plan the tasks equally important but less urgent (Plan), after we perform the tasks urgent but less important for our purposes (do it next) and, in last place, perform the tasks with less urgent and less important (to do list). Following this methodology will become more efficient since the first tasks that we perform are those that have the greatest comeback and impact on our objectives. In way of conclusion, we presented here one of the many existing methods of time management, with applicability to personal and professional level. Following these guidelines let us achieve a new level in our lives. Proper time management provides a relief from anxiety, an increased focus and concentration in carrying out our tasks, increases our awareness in decision-making and increases motivation and keeping it constant. A correct and consistent strategy of time management covers all these and many other benefits, both personally and professionally. We achieve everything we want, and still have time left.

Jorge Carvalho