Why You Should Manage Your Time

All successful people in the world unanimously regard time management as one of the most important factors behind the success. Time management is a lot of things. Firstly, it gives us control over our life. It gives us a sense of direction and meaning to our days. Knowing what we are going to do today helps us stay focused and avoid distractions. Time management also helps us to be realistic in our goals to be accomplished.

Most people overestimate the time they have in a day. Without having a proper time management system, our priorities of work are not established properly and we end up failing to accomplish what we want to achieve. In the absence of time management, a lot of our energy and attention is wasted on unproductive work and leisure which ultimately opens the door to regret in the future. Without any doubt, one can say that having a realistic sense of time is a necessary quality to possess so as to achieve success in different spheres of life.

Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, states the following:

“When you’re working, you should be able to concentrate on working, and when you’re relaxing, you should be able to enjoy relaxing. But you can’t devote 100 percent of your energy to any activity when you have important reminders bouncing around in your head.”

Pseudo-Work: When You Work Without Proper Time-Management

In his book, “How To Become A Straight-A Student”, Cal Newport explains how hectic schedules and long working hours deprive students of their ability to relax and enjoy their hobbies. The students believe that unless they forgo sleep or social life there isn’t enough time available to complete the college work that is assigned to them. The lifestyle adopted by students as a consequence of such thinking and belief involves studying for long hours, relaxing for none, and still feeling a lack of accomplishment.

However, Jason, who is one of the Straight-A students from the University of Pennsylvania introduces the idea of “pseudo-working” to explain the busy, hectic, long-working-hour lifestyle of most students. Despite working much less amount of time than most students, Jason was able to score better than most students. A pseudo-worker is someone who works hard but doesn’t actually accomplish much because of a lack of focus and concentration.

The reason why pseudo-working occurs is that people place themselves in distracting environments. By working painfully for large amounts of time without emphasis on time management and designing a proper environment, people end up getting tired and their brains lose the ability to think clearly and efficiently. The majority of the people are unaware of pseudo-working. In contrast, all of the Straight-A students from the top institutes were aware of and fear themselves from pseudo working. Straight-A students have the ability to get work done with minimum wasted effort. They make use of this simple formula:

Work accomplished = Time spent x Intensity of focus

As one can see, there is an inverse relationship between the intensity of focus at which one does work and the amount of time spent on that piece of work. Pseudo-workers spend a lot of time studying but with lower intensity and focus. Straight-A-students introduced by Cal Newport, on the other hand, ensure that their intensity of study sessions were always high so that the time spent to accomplish the work is reduced.

Manage Your Time Every Day Using 5 Minutes

To manage your time daily, you need two pieces of equipment:

1. Calendar: Could be digital or classical
2. To-Do List: Could be a notepad or a sticky note which can carry everywhere you go

One can manage his or her day within five minutes by following the given steps. This is the system recommended by Cal Newport after he studied how straight-A students achieved academic excellence:

1. Record all the deadlines and to-do’s on your calendar.
2. Every morning make two lists: “Things To Do” and “Things To Remember”, on a sheet of paper. Carry this paper with you throughout.
3. Identify the free time available for you on the day.
4. According to your deadlines and to-do’s, schedule time for things you wish to accomplish on that day. Fill them on your “Things To Do” list.
5. When new tasks and assignments enter during the day, write them down on your “Things To Remember” list. Next morning transfer these new items onto your calendar and assign them deadlines.
6. if you skip a few days, all you need to do is restart again.

The above activity takes just a few minutes every day but if followed consistently, will change your life. It will give you a sense of self-control, direction, and purpose in life. Moreover, a lot of stress and anxiety associated with deadlines and uncertainties will start to fade away.

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