Time Management

October 30th-(11.00-12.00 a.m)

The second day of our lecture started with a question, Why Time management is important to us?  the class answered with many answers for example time doesn't stop we keep growing old and many more. 

Time Management(My definition)

Time management can be anything which will help any one to plan ahead, prioritize there work, it can be some steps which some one uses to prioritize work accordingly.

According to wiseGEEK(2013)Time Management is the art of arranging, organizing, scheduling and budgeting ones time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity.

Every person in this world has some kind of a goal for which he want to see him self in another 5,10 or even 20 years down the line.  It may be a role of CEO, it may be a good businessmen or to be happy in life who has achieved everything what he had hope for. To achieve such goals we need to use techniques and tools to help everyone assess them, help them reach that milestone at the end of the day. so here are some tips and tricks that any one can use to reach their daily milestones.

Tips and tricks(Techniques) which help Time Management

• Tackle the most difficult task early in the morning.
• Use notes to help you organize and plan your day ahead.
• Prioritize work accordingly; give more priority to thinks which are urgent more than important.
• When your working try to stick to a place where you feel most comfortable working and that you wont get distracted.
• Prioritize work
• Having a to-do list
• Multitasking etc..

MindTools(2014) has identified 10 common mistakes for no proper time management. and the list is shown below,

1. Failing to keep a to-do list
2. Not setting personal goals
3. Not prioritizing
4. Failing to manage distractions
5. Procrastination
6. Taking on too much
7. Thriving on 'BUSY'
8. Multitasking.
9. Not taking breaks.
10. Ineffectively scheduling tasks.

The above list are known as common mistakes for poor time management, but in the list multitasking can also be taken as a good time management skill because for some people multitasking is a good technique and for some it doesn't so it varies from one person to another depending on their skill and what a person can take.

There were techniques to identify time management and below shows some of the Time management techniques which we can use to manage day to day work.

Eisenhower's Matrix

Students were asked to draw the Eisenhower's matrix in accordance to the work that was scheduled for today. below shows the authors schedule,

	Urgent	Not Urgent
Important	·          Meet Mr. Gamindu about my FYP ·         Attending lectures	·         Meet admin ·         Make ARMPD blog
Not important	·         Get my pen drive from a friend	·         Watch a movie ·         Play LOL

Authors work, (2013)

Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is a visual diagram used to outline information. It helps in effective learning where any one can summarize, brainstorm to solve problems and memorize information. According to Luciano (2007), mind map is a graphical way to represent ideas and concepts,  its a visual thinking tool that helps anyone structure information to help analyze, comprehend, synthesize and help generate new ideas.

There was a group activity where students were grouped into four and instructed to develop a mind map based on the Eisenhower matrix and below shows the Mind map which was developed by the group.

Source: Authors work, (2013)

 This concluded today session where the lecturer collected all the drawn mind maps.

Reference

wiseGEEK. (2013). What is time Management. Retrieved Nov 5, 2013, from wiseGEEK(clear answers for common questions): http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-time-management.htm

Luciano. 2007. What is Mind Mapping? (and How to Get Started Immediately) - Litemind. [online] Available at: http://litemind.com/what-is-mind-mapping/ [Accessed: 05 Nov 2013]