How To Use Time Wisely

Waking up early in the morning is one of the hardest things to do, right? How you wish you could get that extra ten minutes of sleep! How many times have you set an alarm at 6am and woken up after noon! Do you always end up feeling overstressed, frustrated and angry? Go to bed exhausted and wake up looking like hell?! What would you give, to gain control over your life? To wake up every morning, feeling rejuvenated, calm and cheerful!

Every one of us have with us the same number of days, weeks, months… its about “how” we utilize this time, that differentiates the successful ones from the not so successful ones. Imagine having time to dedicate to work and at the same time have an active social life, to have that vacation, time to relax… Well, All of this is completely achievable, as long as you organize yourself well with effective time management techniques!

The first thing to do, to utilize time wisely, is to PRIORITIZE! List out all the things you have to do… everything that is in your mind. And rank them according to their importance – from absolutely essential to optional. It would be wise to include meditation, worship etc. also as critical even though it may not seem to be. Sometimes, urgent tasks may crop up, which may not be high in terms of criticality, yet are “urgent”. So the list should be flexible enough to accommodate such tasks. Hence, grade the various tasks in hand as urgent, important but not urgent, neither important nor urgent. And then further rank items under each category. These decisions may be difficult to take, but they are the key to effective time management. Hence, prioritize. Maintain a to-do book. It really helps you keep focused on work that needs to get done.

There’s something called Pareto principle of the 80/20 rule. It just says, 80% of all results come from 20% of all efforts that you put in! So when you identify which 20% is most important, and perform it, you’re already quite successful! So focus your efforts accordingly!

Always remember, the time is “now”! Even though the important tasks may not exactly be interesting things, you still have to motivate yourself to do it! Picture having completed the task and how you feel after it; immediately work towards it! If the task looks very humongous, then try and divide it into sub task. Device a methodology in your mind; suddenly, the whole thing will look a lot simpler and you can go about doing it!

Give yourself a treat when you have finished a very knotty task! Go to a spa, have a nice long head bath or anything that would make you feel nice about yourself! Remember, fitness, meditation, healthy food may not seem like critical tasks, however including them as part of your everyday will make world of difference to how you feel. You will see a new you very soon, just shake yourself up and make up your mind to lead a tension-free organized lifestyle. You will soon find yourself spreading smiles wherever you go!