STOP WASTING TIME! BECOME YOUR TIME MANAGER.

Time is a currency said to be at equal amount for every person, regardless of race, wealth, status or power; The 10 minutes for Jeff Bezoz is supposed to be the same 10 minutes for your average Joe but some are able to do all they have to do on time while others don’t, which makes me think;

Is it really 24 hours in a day for everyone? 
Do you ever wonder if there are 24 hours in deed in a day or if it's just a thesis that still needs to be checked? 
Until some weeks back after I started writing, I thought someone was either sharing my time with me or time was faster than the 60 seconds in a minute I was taught it to be.

There’s just no Time 
Looking back, my favorite phrase then seem to be "I don’t have time!" I had no time to hang out with friends, no time to eat what I wanted when I wanted to, no time to complete my language class; the only thing I had time for was being a living human. 
One surprising thing then was that with the whole 'busyness' I had nothing to show as a result for my lack of time. Okay, it wasn’t as if I had nothing to show exactly but compared to how occupied I was, the result couldn’t merge with the time spent.

What happened? 
While thinking that my never enough time was because I was trying to balance the hassle of being a student with a demanding course and building a career in writing, It was assuring that the problem was definitely with the timing system and of course not me. 
Fortunately, upon accessing my progress so far with my write-ups, I realized that though I got better in my use of words, but unfortunately, a devil had caught up with me and as such, although I was getting the tasks done, I WAS WASTING TIME! I was doing an hour task in 2 and making a week’s progress in 3 weeks, running from deadlines to deadlines, barely meeting time.

You know how one person perhaps in your class or offering a lesson with you regardless of the situation and every other persons' unseriousness would have his 'shit' together. Similarly, that was how it was with a friend of mine doing the same thing I was doing but better, writing an article periodically without miss, making As in class, in short doing all I was not doing. Of course, I knew I was a mess but knowing that wasn't enough to help me.

How then is it that you do the same activities as a colleague but the achievement doesn’t show for it? Let me just say that He has found the need to master an art which you haven’t found the need to which is Time Management.

What is Time Management and what's it deal? 
Time Management is the process of organizing, planning and delegating time effectively to different activities for maximum yield. It's not just getting results but ascertaining that the time required to accomplish the task doesn't affect the time for others. 
Though Time Management is not a skill you add to your resume nor one that increases your chances of a high paying job but it's a skill that gives you a leverage with the following:

• A good reputation to not just deliver well but deliver on time; nothing beats being reliable.

• Producing better results as you have time to accomplish what you ought to without fear of missing deadlines and appointments.

• Helps you cover more grounds without having undue stress.

•Increase chances of a career advancement.

• Gives a balance between work and personal life.

How do you become a good Time Manager? 
Just as I mentioned earlier, knowing the mess created by the time you wasted isn't enough, you need some strategy to manage your time effectively;

1. Own your Time: firstly, you need to come to the realization of the fact that you have all control of your time; you do only what you want to do, even if you’re told what to do, it’s up to you to decide to do it. Realizing this will help you make decisions that will you make the best use of your time.
2. Analyze your existing approach: you can only do better when you know what you are doing wrong and how you can improve it. If I hadn’t realized that something was wrong with how I was going about my time, I would have still been in an almost stagnant position and most likely not had the need to write this. How do you spend your time? Just as you analyze your cash flow to avoid reckless spending, knowing this would help you know where to start from.
3. Set Goals: if you don’t have a goal, you can’t measure how far you are to where you want to be. Always ensure that whatever task you have, you 'start with an end in mind’. Set Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely(SMART) goals to compliment your time.
4. Have a Schedule: starting a day with no plan for the day is the best way to get 'over busy' throughout the day with almost nothing to show for it. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"; you do so much only to realize at the end of the day that you did so little. Having a to-do list or planner not just help you organize your day but help prevent you missing out on important tasks, as well as effective allocation of your task to the most suitable time.
5. Learn to say NO: if you are the type that don’t know when or how to say NO to some assignments nor delegate certain tasks to other people, you might want to reconsider because you run the risk of always overbooking yourself. Giving a helping hand is good and needed as we always need help ourselves but everything must be done in moderation. Learn to say NO, delegate tasks or suggest another timing when asked a favour, you will be doing your time a lot of good.
6. Set Deadlines: Parkinson’s law states that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion". This is why even though the deadline is so close, with all the adrenaline rush and pressure bursting in your system, you still complete the assignment. Truly you must have completed the assignment but to some detriment. Your objective as a good time manager is to avoid those detriment, so to leverage on this, give yourself a deadline before the expected deadline, set your mind on the self-imposed deadline as the time the job is to be done and let your adrenaline do the rest.
7. Implement the Salami’s technique: this is a great tool in defeating procastination and the fear of not completing a complex task. Instead of waiting for the chunk of time required to complete a task, taking it in bit is a useful way of managing time. Most of my "I will do it later" was because I felt I needed more time than available at that moment to complete the task. Cutting the task into slices not only increase your willingness to start but increase your chances of finishing.
8. Manage Distractions: it’s advisable to have a conducive working area wherever you are working from, with the possible distractions reduced to the minimum. One place I wasted a lot of my time was on my phone, the one minute I took to check or reply messages was more than enough to kiss whatever I was doing initially goodbye for a long time. To manage this, you will do well by placing your phone a good distance from your reach, the time required of you to stand up and go for the phone might just be enough to help you reconsider your decision.
9. Give yourself Break: all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, all work and no break will possibly make Jack use the remaining time after the work for 'resting' because Jack is tired. A sign of being a good manager is that you’re doing the right thing at the right time and the right way, work during work time and taking a break during break time. One of the ways to account for breaks while working is using the pomodoro technique, especially with tasks requiring a long time and full focus; In this, you divide the task into 4, take on the first 3 for a period of 25minutes each with a 5 minutes break at interval, then after the last part of the task, take a long break. This helps balance a narrow focus with frequent breaks which can account for distractions, reduce mental stress as well as maintain motivation for work to complete other tasks.
10. Prioritize: one way to misuse time is doing the right thing at the wrong time; you could have a list of things to do but will definitely be of different importance. While using a to-do list or when going about some tasks, it should be distributed into 4 categories:

•Important and Urgent= Do 
• Important but not Urgent= Decide a time 
• Not Important but Urgent= Delegate to someone else 
• Not Important and Not Urgent= Delete.

What you are and become depends on what you do with your time, your time is the core factor upon which every decision and result depends on. A good advice for making great decision in a world where timing is everything is to be careful with your time just as you’re with your money if not more, since the latter is redeemable. Ask yourself these constantly, "What is the most valuable use of my time now? What time would this time affect?" This will not just help you have a good use of your time but also maintain a balance between your non-negotiable time, that is work time and your negotiable time, which is leisure, family or personal time.