“Time is what we want most, but we use worst.” – William Penn
Time, and our ability to use it effectively, is one of the key concepts in our lives. The way we manage our time affects our mental wellbeing and our earning potential. Given time, we can work in a way that reduces stress levels and generates more income. Income and stress can fluctuate, but time is constant – there can only ever be 24 hours in a day. Time is a non-renewable resource – it cannot be bottled up and saved for later. Once it’s gone, it’s gone! For this reason, developing and practicing effective time management at work is essential for enabling us to handle a demanding job, and giving us focus and direction, which in turn will increase our productivity.
Poor time management is a major cause of stress. It generates a feeling of being overwhelmed and anxious about having too much to do – we become unclear about prioritizing the most important tasks. This leads to procrastination and distraction from our money-making potential. Building a successful strategy to complete difficult tasks is the best way to overcome this. Learning how to manage our time effectively can help us feel more relaxed, focus, and in control. Breaks are important, too. Spending 30 minutes away from our desk at lunchtime will help us to be more productive in the afternoon and separate our work into manageable chunks. On average, 20% of the workday is spent productively, while the remaining 80% is devoted to tasks that have minimal value. Well-honed time management skills involve finding ways to work efficiently. It’s not about how much we can cram into our workday, but about achieving good quality results. Spending more time on something that doesn’t necessarily generate better output. Multitasking is not an efficient use of time, either. Studies have shown that productivity drops by as much as 40% when we attempt to do several jobs at once. It affects our ability to focus on quality, thus impacting our earning capacity.
So let’s take control of our precious time, and look forward to feeling more relaxed and fulfilling our potential.