Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Precious time By Maeng Tabije Notions Plus
IF THERE is anything that people in this world -- young and old, rich and poor, white and colored -- have an equal resource of, it is time. We all have 24 hours a day, each and every day.
One of the things that set the more successful people from the rest is management of their time. In today's world there are always too many things to attend to -- job, family, civic work, professional organizations, social obligations and so on. If you don't manage them efficiently, you could easily get overwhelmed.
A few months ago, as the president of the Rotary Club of South Davao, I invited my friend, City Councilor Leo Avila III (Happy LA, to FM radio listeners), to be our luncheon speaker.
When I read through his resume, I was very impressed at the many committees and organizations that he heads or is actively involved in with much success. I asked him how he could manage to attend to all those multifarious responsibilities and his answer was short: time management.
Here's my number one time management advice: Plan your daily activities, list them down and prioritize them.
With so many things to do everyday, it is so easy to forget a few things here and there. Then we remember the following day and curse our forgetfulness.
The only way to remember all things that need to be done is to write them down. There's a saying I once read that goes, "The palest ink is better than the best memory."
The best time to make a to-do list is when your mind is relaxed, at the start of your day. If you take your coffee in a relaxed mode before breakfast, that's a great time to start mulling over your activities for the day. If that's not feasible, make this your first activity in the office, for about 15-30 minutes, before jumping into the day's work.
Here's how I prioritize and organize things, the low-tech way (but effective, mind you). I take a bunch of 1/8 sheets of papers and start writing down randomly all the activities that I need to attend to on a particular day.
Each activity is written in one sheet of paper. After I have written all the activities, I now rearrange the sheets—most urgent at the top, least urgent at the bottom.
As each activity gets accomplished, I throw away the sheet of paper where it is written. As the day wears on and an additional activity comes to mind, I write it in another sheet and insert it in the bunch according to its level of urgency.
Throughout the day, I take a glance at the sheets of papers to see which ones I still need to do until everything is done.
Here's my second advice: Learn to say "no". The problem if you are an efficient and reliable person is that other people—your bosses, club officers, etc.—always think of you when things need to be done.
After a while, even matters that are not your responsibility get assigned to you because they trust that you can and will do the job.
Even as you should help when you could, you should know when to say ‘no’ if it will already overwhelm you. Remember that there are other important things in life that also need your time allocation – family time, visit to your parents, well-deserved vacation, social visits to friends, and more.
For more time management ideas, I invite you to visit my website ManagementWarrior.com. Just key in “time management” in the article search box.
(Ismael Tabije is an international development consultant whose clients include the UN, the WB, and the EC, among others. Email comments to idtabije@yahoo.com.)
