“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Gustave Flaubert

So you start the day full of enthusiasm. You have planned to do all your college works before afternoon so you can enjoy the rest of the day with friends. Firing up your computer, the familiar stream of e-mails pours into your inbox, most of them from friends and some are job vacancy notifications. Scanning through the list, your heart sinks – two of them look as intersting job posts. You hit the followed links and start typing a response to one of them… suddenly you saw the chat room blinks your one old peer starting with a ‘hi’. You got surprised and happy, you replied and chat of all old things and memories. It is really excellent to get retouched with an old mate.

After an half an hour, you come around that you forgot your work; you’ve got sucked into the e-mail zone and have been sidetracked by interesting links sent by friends, as well as chatting. You minimize the email window and get back to your work…

After 15 minutes you’re really enjoying yourself, getting into your flow – when the phone rings. Somebody wants something from you, something to do, with a document, which you have promised to your friend. You rummage through the papers on your desk, searching for your notes. You can’t find them. Suddenly your heart leaps as you lift up a folder and find an application letter you’d forgotten about– it has to be sent two days before. ‘Hang on, I’ll get back to you’ you tell the person on the phone, ‘I’ll ring you back when I’ve found it’.

You put the phone down and pick up the letter and finished it up at the moment and you posted it. When you back your mail box is again filled with mails and chat invitations and your mobile shows you missed 5 calls of that person who was before. Your heads totally filled with chaos and your college works not even crossed a single phase. At that moment your plans are collapsed.

Is this familiar to you in your mundane works? I am sure the answer will be ‘yes’. You know natural things are things which are available to all without partiality. Though we human beings found some ways to control the natural things, not all the times, time is the only thing which no one can control. So it won’t consider who? Why? What? Which? And all things, it runs as fast as it can. It is our duty to accept it and afford it. The concept of time management starts when we tried to accept the failure of battle with time. How to do it? How to manage it here the ways...

PRIORITISE THE IMPORTANT WORK NOT URGENT:

When I started to blog, I always wanted that it should be filled with new articles. So whenever I got a new idea I started to type them no matter what works are in pending. When I come around I will see some work of if-don’t-finish-can’t-enter-to-class type still in pending. So after that I will finish them up with sleepy eyes. This is a full stop about me, how you are prioritising your works?

This is a common thing among us. When we crossing an urgent work we will get panicked and mess with all of them and forget to do the important works too in sometimes. So when classifying our works on two aspect basis the following matrix will be helpful to give importance.

This is a familiar matrix wherever you read about time management. I am sorry that this article has no exception to include it.

As per an earlier research it shows that 80% of us spending more time on “urgent and important” kind of work. Because of its urgency makes us to be nervous and the importance leads to do more works. So when prioritising works give more important to the first box kind works.

The second prioritise works can be given to those which are urgent. Then in parallel take care of “important but not urgent” kind works. That means finish those important works before they become urgent.

CHOOSE YOUR TIME TO DO:

Every thoughts coming to our mind is somewhat has a connection with the surrounding where we are. If you are hearing a song, which you always hear with your dear one, sure it will take you the memories. As like the same when we doing some works environment make a strong impact in it.

So to do a work choosing of time plays a part too. In the early morning the mind will be fresh with no commitments, so fix that time for works which needs more of thinking. In the noon times the body will feel drowsy, so in that time commit with the leisure works that will boost up your excitement. In the late evening times our mind will free and can utilise that times for analyse works. These are my opinions about how to schedule your works regarding to mind state. It may differ person to person, job to job etc. So be sure when you are fixing your work.

AVOID ‘SISYPHUS EFFECT’:

Sisyphus is a character in ancient Greek mythology who was tortured with never ending tasks. He was condemned to roll a big rock up to the mountain only watch it roll back down and start all over again.

The enthusiasm level is not depending on interest alone but the size of the work too. You know the enthusiasm level will be higher if small amount of works than a 24 hrs work on interested thing. So try to avoid non ending to-do lists. Because higher the enthusiasm and more the effectiveness in work.

There is one more thing that should be taken care of, that are interruptions in work. Consider the first part of this article, even you start with an enthusiasm the interruptions cause the works in to a big mess. So keeping away from the interruptions will be better in performance. The bottom line is that interruptions destroy your concentration. And loss of concentration = loss of creative work. If you’re not careful, you can end up in permanent ‘reactive mode’ – spending your time responding to others’ demands and all the things you have to do instead of the one thing you really wanted to do today.

GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO BREATHE:

When you worked with the twin problems, of interruptions and the Sisyphus effect, you should give yourself room to breathe. Keep yourself clear head and stay focused on your goals in between responding to other’s demand. In simple words you have to install a buffer between your dreams and others demand. Otherwise you will end up in unproductive ’reaction mode’.

On the other hand, you need to find a way to fulfilling your needs and accomplish what others need from you in a timescale. If you don’t the goodwill of your will skate down from the peak.

To get free of this we can go for concept of ‘Do it tomorrow’. Don’t be happy, because some people use this as excuse for being lazy. But my opinion is to do it tomorrow, neither today nor day after tomorrow. For example to do deal with emails, have this concept, check only what you have received yesterday, even you received something not yesterday don’t put yourself in it, because it may lead to non ending task.

PUT COMMITMENT IN THE BUCKET NOT IN MIND:

When ever we are doing something we always have a thought as something we forgot. How can we remember all the commitments that we committed? Or will you add it to your to-do list, whatever you committed through phone. In this situation the organised method of keeping the to-do lists.

Put commitments in the bucket method is a way of avoiding the above error. As per the above concept, keep a tray to put the to-do lists and take a decision that if I don’t put it in the tray, it will not be done. It may odd and difficult to follow, but compulsion of your decision will come in help to follow it.

REVIEW YOUR COMMITMENTS:

Ok, you are ready to organise your commitments in a tray, is that enough? Absolutely it is not, because, the commitments are not to keep in a tray, but to be finished. So review of commitment is the final step in it.

Why should I review them?

Whenever you are adding lists in the bucket the first made commitment will end in last. The commitment may not get a required priority what it deserved. So review of commitments or emptying the bucket is very important so that your mind will be tension free as well as you will not mess with the Sisyphus effect.

The review will not going to consume more than 10 minutes and if it will reorganise our work means, why not? The next question will be when?

It is depend on your time schedule and work level. If you are committing mostly on others needs or committing more number of works in a week, the daily review will be better. Otherwise weekly review will be okay. If you see finished a work, remove it from the tray. If you seen any work is on process, keep them on top of the tray so the deleting will be easy after accomplishment. I hope this will help you too manage the time effectively.