Time Management

I was supposed to have lunch with my good friend the other day; however, she had to cancel due to how overwhelmed she was with preparing for finals. We had made these lunch plans a week prior and I was slightly annoyed that she couldn’t make our scheduled meeting partly because I, too, have been preparing for finals and had made the time to meet with her. As much as I love my friend, she has always been a poor planner and has never grasped the basics of time management. If I were a more assertive person and/or had a better or different relationship with this friend, I would like to share with her the many things I have learned about time management:

                  Time management begins with identifying one’s priorities. Making a detailed priority list that includes all aspects of one’s life such as family, friends, career, school, sex, sleep, etc. is the first step to organizing one’s life.  The list then needs to then be put in order of importance (i.e. 1) Family 2) Friends 3) Career…). What makes this step so important is because one cannot make wise decisions about his or her time unless he or she knows what is most important.

The next step in effective time management is buying or creating a detailed calendar that displays the week, day, and hours of the day on the same page. This allows the viewer both an overall and in-depth look at one’s schedule. At this point, the individual can start imputing times. This step begins with scheduling time for whatever is first in one’s priority list. For example, if ‘family’ is at the top of an individual’s priority list, he or she must schedule and set aside some time to either spend with the family and/or call on the phone. After all the priorities have been scheduled one can then shuffle these times around as needed without taking and/or subtracting the amount of time that has already been scheduled. This allows the person to keep his or her priorities intact while also being reminded that there are only 24 hours a day.

I do hope that my friend learns these skills at some point, not only for her own good, but so that I can spend some quality time with her.