It’s important that you develop effective strategies for managing your time to balance the conflicting demands of time for self-care, family and friends.
Setting Goals
Set yourself specific and clearly defined goals, and make sure that these are realistic and achievable. To do this, you first need to examine your present situation and assess what goals are important to you and what action you need to take to achieve your target. Have a contingency plan or alternative route to your goal in case you have to change your plans.
Goal 1: Self-care should be always on your daily calendar.
45 minutes of physical activity
Exercise helps with time management
Take a new perspective and use exercise as a time management technique! Physical activity improves energy levels, increases productivity and promotes better sleep quality. In addition to lifting mood, it’s also a great way to clear your mind so you can prioritize what’s important.
Exercise doesn’t need to be structured to be effective. You don’t need a gym membership or specific equipment. Start by finding ways to include movement in your day. Take the stairs, park further away, try lunges while watching TV! The social element is also powerful in creating healthy habits. Make the most of your social time, how about a walk with friends instead of catching up over coffee? Find an exercise partner – you’ll keep each other accountable, have more fun and can celebrate your success together.
10- 20 minutes of meditation
Here are four ways by which meditation helps with better time management.
Increases Focus Level
Meditation increases communication with the inner self. It sharpens the brain and increases the focus level making us better with our work and time management. Meditation also increases the level of self-discipline.
Increases productivity
Meditation practice helps in increasing the work productivity of an individual. The person who meditates gets along well with the timely completion of his/her work as meditation also helps them in increasing their concentration power. It nurtures the power of taking immediate and timely decisions of an individual.
Boosts attention
Our brain is the vital organ which manages the overall functioning of the body. The part of the brain- anterior cingulate cortex is affected tremendously among the people who follow meditation. Anterior cingulate cortex involves the executive functioning of the brain hence, the nourishment of this part results in boosting attention.
Prevents procrastinating
There are times when we postpone certain actions or delay a particular work. People who meditate are more prone to prevent procrastination. The term ‘delaying’ is not in their dictionary. The efficient functioning of the brain enhances the decision-making power among individuals.
Goal 2: Spending time with your spouse.
After caring for yourself, spending time with your family is the most important priority you can ever have!!!
One of the simplest things you can do for your relationship is be proactive in managing the time you spend on yourself, being a couple, and being a family. Many times, life gets busy and a committed partner slips into becoming a roommate who is also exhausted. Work, kids, social obligations; all these things will take every bit of time you have and more if you do not manage them. Folks who make love last learn how to set boundaries in their different roles and give time to what is important to them.
Many folks look back at the beginning of their relationship with fondness. They remember all the dates, trips, and happy times discovering each other. Then work, PTA meetings, the lawn; all these things seem to conspire to take over your life. Your relationship is left longing.
You have to make time to talk:
Time to talk includes conversations about what is working well and challenges within your relationship.
Date night:
Make sure you and your partner sit down with your calendars and schedule dates in advance and make any necessary arrangements for childcare. Couples who tell themselves they will have date night as soon as the opportunity arises usually won’t ever find the time. Life almost always gets in the way and it takes discipline to start saying no to the things you prioritize over spending time together.
Time to connect physically:
Sex is important for many reasons in any committed relationship. It is ultimately about intimacy, pleasure and sexual expression. Sex has many positive physical, intellectual, emotional and social benefits. Understanding these benefits will help couples recognize that sex in their relationships will not only help themselves, but help bond their relationship further and create a deeper sense of intimacy in a loving relationship.
Goal 3: Spend time with your kids!
The goal of every parent is to raise a happy and well-adjusted child. There are thousands of books, which provide information and advice on raising children successfully. Experts in their respective fields strive to give parents the most up to date information whether it is about health, nutrition, child development, education, or parenting. However, one simple truth is often overlooked: Children from birth to adulthood need time and attention from their parents.
Sometimes parents become so anxious to raise a “successful” child that they overlook the importance of spending time interacting personally with their child or children. This does not mean rushing from school to extracurricular activity to supervising homework. Interactive time is that spent with both child and parent fully engaged in an activity together. The importance of this time is multifold:
The child feels important and loved.
He or she has an opportunity to model parent’s behavior.
The parent can observe and learn about the child’s strengths and weaknesses in order to better guide them.
The child has a chance to voice their thoughts and feelings.
The parent and child develop a stronger bond.
Goal 4: Prioritizing.
Efficiency and effectiveness are not the same.
Someone who works hard and is well organized but spends all their time on unimportant tasks may be efficient but not effective. To be effective, you need to decide what tasks are urgent and important and to focus on these. This is called prioritizing. It’s important to list the tasks you have and to sort these in order of priority, and then to devote most time to the most important tasks. This avoids the natural tendency to concentrate on the simple, easy tasks and to allow too many interruptions to your work.
Eliminate distractions.
Start paying attention to the number of times someone interrupts you when you’re in the midst of an important task. Track self-induced interruptions, too, particularly those of the social media variety. Your smartphone is extremely useful, but it’s also addictive and among the most insidious time-wasters known to mankind.
Destroy Procrastination
One of the hardest parts of time management is the dreaded procrastination that tends to rear its ugly head all too often. How do we avoid procrastination? Well, we can set all the goals that we would like, get organized and prioritize our time but if we can’t follow through with our list of things to do each day then we’re wasting our time.
So, how do we avoid this?
Procrastination has been termed the silent killer and it’s one of the biggest deterrents to our goals. We all say that we want to accomplish something, but when it comes down to managing our time with some sense of efficiency, we can’t seem to get things accomplished. Procrastination seems to be around every single corner.
However, the only way around procrastination is to be completely aware of what needs to be done. If you can set clear goals, get organized, and prioritize your time, you’ll be well on the way to destroying any propensity for procrastination. If none of that works, then try the 15-minute rule.
Set a timer on your watch, smartphone, or anywhere else, and set to doing something you’ve been putting off for just 15 minutes. That’s all you need to commit to: 15 minutes. What you’ll come to realize is that an object in motion stays in motion; once you get started, you’ll most likely keep going. The hardest part is simply getting started!
Advantages of using a to do list
- Focuses your mind on important objectives.
- You are less likely to forget to do tasks.
- Writing a list helps order your thoughts.
- It helps show the bigger picture.
- You don’t need to hold everything in your head.
- It saves time.
- It helps you decide on priorities: the most important and the most urgent.
- You are less likely to become sidetracked.
- You get the reward of ticking off your achievements.
- You feel more in control.
- You have a record of what you’ve done.
- You always have something to work on.
