Short messages on Time Management from Respect Yourself, the guidance site for young people to help make good decisions in life.
If you are at school or work during the week, you may find Sunday a difficult day, as it is long and unstructured. Set a reminder for every Saturday morning to plan what you will do on Sunday. Get library books; plan a walking route; organise a visit.
When you’re at your busiest, a short break can rejuvenate your mind and increase your productivity. These breaks will help you regain your sanity and reflect on your recent actions so you can be sure they’re in line with your goals.
Taking into consideration your current efforts, actions and behaviours, where would you expect to be in five years? This is different from asking where you would like to be.
How much time do you waste on non-essential activities? Pick something you’ve always wanted to do but never thought you had the time, and put one hour a day towards it in place of no-value tasks.
Two skills are important for managing your workload effectively: understanding the difference between nonessential tasks and critical tasks, and knowing how to prioritise your tasks in terms of importance and urgency.
Make sure you don’t squander your effort with long to-do lists that are full of busywork. Each action you do should create some value; some more than others.
“Busywork” is work that keeps someone busy but has little value in itself – it makes you look busy, or actually keeps you busy, and passes the time despite being essentially pointless.
If tidying up seems a large and daunting task, start small by tackling the current clutter a room at a time. Prevent future build-up by using the mantra “Don’t put it down, put it away”.
If you define your problem clearly, your solutions will be more abundant, of higher quality and achieved much, much more easily.
The quality of the solutions you come up with will be in direct proportion to the quality of the description of the problem you’re trying to solve.