Into Motivation

One of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People according to Stephen Covey is that they must be able to manage time correctly. People look at the management of time from different perspectives and there are lots of misconceptions associated. Here are some of the myths that we hear regularly, associated with time management:

1. The assumption that “plenty of time” is available and you can put something off indefinitely. Never accept this position, as each block of time has an effective value which must be adhered to. If you have something to do and are assuming that you will have “plenty of time” left for this later, you may be forgetting to heed the requirements of “Murphy’s Law.” Always get something out of the way, if you have it scheduled.

2. Assuming that you can’t handle every thing that you have to do. How is it that some people appear to breeze through everything that they have to complete, but that you have way too much “on your plate?” You simply need to organise your time in such a way that you can allocate according to correct priorities. In this way, everything will fit.

3. Concluding that as you are so busy, you must reallocate tasks to a time in future. It is a fact of life that we all subconsciously tend to place an additional perceived value on the time “right now,” as we all tend to live in the present. In truth, each block of time available to you is of equal importance and you need to stop procrastinating.

4. Believing something is not important – you don’t need to do it right now. Time management requires us to come up with

a plan and to stick to it. Often, tasks may appear to be really trivial, but once your mind focuses on them, each task should be tackled and ticked off as you complete them, when such tasks are part of your scheduled and prepared plans for the day. Unless you do this, you just cannot be ultimately efficient.

5. Believing that it is impossible to reschedule. This is not true either, as there will, from time to time, be reasons why you should reschedule. An external event of some kind or additional information may come onto the radar screen and this may necessitate a reassessment of the project you are working on, while you get additional information to help you, or otherwise. Rescheduling is acceptable, unless you are procrastinating, or are not sure whether the project you are working on has any importance any more, and so on.

At this point, online time management tools can really help you focus on achieving your time management objectives. The highly effective people that we hear about are using time tracking software to ensure that they are “on point.” You will hear many myths on this subject to confuse you and should discount them. In our modern society, time management software will show you how efficient you are being in your daily life. When Covey talked about those highly effective people, remember that the key word was “highly.” Don’t do anything by halves, and certainly don’t do it with the management of your time.