Page 335 - Effective Communication Soft Skills Strategies For Success by Nitin Bhatnagar, Mamta Bhatnagar

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Time-management Skills | 323

said, that ‘the person who concentrates entirely on sawing wood, is likely to
forget to sharpen the saw’. As aptly stated by Covey, Merrill and Merrill, our
goals should be selected with care.
Fourthly, some people make their daily schedules too rigid and overly
demanding. Your schedule should make you feel as if you have ‘got it together’,
not like a failure or an incompetent. It would be foolish to plan every minute
of every day. An opportunity—a chance to talk with the boss, a chance to
become involved in a project, or a chance to meet someone—may appear
at any moment. You must be ready to explore any good opportunity; other-
wise, life can become a drag. Priorities and assignments and deadlines change
every day; thus, the use of your ‘tree’ time every day must change a little, too.

PURPOSE OF TIME MANAGEMENT

It is essential to make better use of your time, both in terms of devoting time
to high priority activities and to avoiding wasting of time or spending your
time on less important things. It is also required to be time effective, not
necessarily time efficient, by selecting the best thing to do at this moment
from among the infinite possibilities. Effective time management principles
will help you to do this.

EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

There are several steps which outline the effective time management principles.
They are outlined below:

Set your priorities. List your major goals for the next few months. Rate Each
goal. Ask ‘What Are the most important things for me to Do?’

At least every month or so, reconsider your goals of life, your purpose in life,
and/or your organization’s mission. In this context, it will also be helpful to
think of the important roles you would play, such as a son, a student, a part-
time worker, a fraternity member, a teacher and an employee, or perhaps
you are a husband, father, Head of the Department. Make a list of major
goals which you consider are really important to accomplish in each of your
roles—at work or school, in relationships, in organizations, and, of course,
in personal growth. Now, go through the list and rate each goal as being the
‘top’ priority, ‘second’ priority or ‘low’ priority. We can’t do everything which
we’d like to do. However, we can guard against spending too much time on
second or low priority activities. And we can avoid spending all our time
in one area, e.g,. working desperately to be successful in our career while
neglecting our family.

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