One of the biggest struggles many people face is time-management. How to keep up with the various things we have to do in our lives in a timely manner, and with little anxiety. These things can vary from homework and assignments, to doing the grocery shopping.
So what can we do, to use our time properly and wisely?
- Know your goals – what do you need to do? These include your short-term and long-term goals.
- Prioritise – Are you hosting a party in a few days, and need to do the grocery shopping for that? Have an assignment deadline coming up? Notice what is urgent, and what is important. Some things can be urgent, but not that important, and so less time can be dedicated to them, or better yet, delegate this job to others if possible; others are important but not urgent, so one can allocate more time to them, but at a later stage.
- Say no – be comfortable to refuse projects or activities which do not serve your short-term, nor long-term goals.
- Plan ahead. Allocate some time every day, either first thing in the morning, or last thing before going to bed, in order to plan the next day. See your prioritised to-do list, and clear your desk and prepare it for the day to come.
- Eliminate distractions – do you spend too much time on social media just scrolling, or do you answer texts too quickly? If there’s an action which doesn’t serve you, such as by fuelling your creativity, or encourage you to work more productively, then eliminate it from your life. Put your phone on silent, and install extensions in your web browser which will limit your social media time.
- Delegate – This cannot be repeated enough. Delgate, delegate, delegate. If there’s an action which doesn’t necessarily have to be done by you, then try see who can do it instead of you. Are you always the one who has to find a restaurant for when your group of friends hangs out, but then you realise that you waste hours trying to find the perfect restaurant which suits everyone? Give that task to someone else for a change.
- Take care of yourself – Sleep, exercise, practice a hobby, be mindful. All of these actions will help you be more alert for your work, and also will help you relax and relieve stress. And when we relieve stress and anxiety, we can automatically work better on our tasks.
Mel McElhatton holds a degree in Social Work from the University of Malta. With Willingness, Mel does life coaching and is one of the facilitators in the IRL – In Real Life team. They are also the producer of the radio show Niddiskutu s-Sess. They can be contacted on mel@willingness.com.mt. You can visit their profile on: https://zme.tec.mybluehost.me/willingnessmt/team/mel-mcelhatton/