Improving Your Time Management
I believe there are few working adults who feel that they have an abundance of free time and that cannot benefit from time management techniques. We likely spend 40 hours of our week working, 5 commuting, hopefully 56 sleeping, 12 doing house chores, and 8 eating to start. Then, add an extra 20 hours of work if you have children and maybe 5-10 for miscellaneous other responsibilities. That, on average, is 151 hours per week. We only have 168 total.
This leaves us with 17 floating hours per week to allocate wherever else we need. If our jobs are more demanding, these probably go there. If we have longer commutes, kids with higher need levels, or have more household responsibilities our time will go there. We also need to reserve time for us to engage in our hobbies, take personal down time, take care of our own health through exercise and showering, see our therapists to take care of our mental health, and engage in fun activities with other friends or family. We may feel that we are completely busy all day everyday, with no extra time after all of these things take it.
It may be beneficial to try and use some forms of time management techniques in order to better stretch our free time or even create more. If we consciously work on doing more within a shorter period of time, we will end up with more time.
The first recommendation is using those five hours of commute time as personal care time or time to call a relative. Blast your favorite music as high as is safe and sing along on your way to work to get pumped up or on your way home to ease your stresses. This naturally creates endorphins and can help you be in a better mood at work and at home. Try to see those commute hours as your sacred alone time if you can’t find it elsewhere, instead of getting angry waiting in traffic. You can also use this time to call (hands free please!) and catch up with relatives or friends, instead of allowing that to cut into your much needed personal or activity time later on. As a bonus, you now have an easy excuse to get off the phone when you arrive at your destination, and you get the bonus of feeling like a better support person to your loved ones while keeping connections strong.
Another recommendation is to leave all work at work, with no excuses. This is not possible for every profession, of course, but something we should all try. At home in our off time we may find ourselves being bombarded with work emails about things that really can wait until the next business day, and we may find ourselves answering and doing the work when we really should be allocating our time elsewhere. If we work our hardest at work and get everything done that we are supposed to, there should be no reason for us to have to bring work home or work ahead on the weekends, so we need to get rid of that option for ourselves. Turn off your email and phone notifications outside of business hours so you are not even aware of the work pileup, as knowing there is work waiting may cause you to become anxious enough to do it. You can be the most dedicated worker at your company without allowing work to consume your life and time.
Another recommendation is to spend a higher quality of time with our friends and family if we do not have a huge quantity of time. It is recommended that we spend one hour per day of uninterrupted time with our kids for the betterment of their development and to improve the parent-child bond. During this time, we should not be engaging in any other activities besides talking directly with our kids or doing a fun shared team activity, such as cooking a meal or drawing a picture all together. Watching television as a family falls more under the personal time category, as we are not actively engaging with our family members the majority of that time. If we spend that quality time with our family members early on in the day, we can always turn on a movie for them while we take care of our personal needs such as hobby time or exercise, and they won’t miss our presence as much.
A final recommendation is to make a time schedule of the week, at least for a few weeks, so you can see where you are putting your time. Fill up every hour with what you plan to use it for, and then any extra hours fill with things such as “down time”, “nap time”, “tennis time”, “nails time”, etc. This way, you can try your best to finish your activities in the time allotted and then begin the next activity on time. Your day may still be full in your mind, while you are still allowing yourself mental and physical rest periods as part of your tasks.
We cannot add hours to the week. We also can’t drive faster to get to work, skip meals, get less sleep, or neglect cleaning the house safely or healthily. The commitments we have will take up our time, and it is important to adjust how long they take where possible in order for betterment overall. Try a few of these techniques or think about some more that apply to your life. Bike to work to combine commute and exercise time, have your children help you with chores to combine duties with family time, and find ways to get personal time in to your work related activities. Time management skills can benefit your stress and happiness levels and allow you to feel less overloaded and with a more balanced and positive lifestyle.
Kyndal Sims
Birch Psychology
Resources
https://www.thegrowthcoach.com/what-we-do/smart-time-management
https://zety.com/blog/time-management-skills
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-ways-improve-your-time-management-skills.html