Most of you are juggling multiple responsibilities every day. Work schedules, childcare, ZOOM learning for your kids, household chores, grocery shopping. Whew! And on top of it all, you decided to go back to school adding yet another layer of complexity to your already complicated life. Because you know where you want to go and you made the commitment to do what you had to do to get there.
How to keep so many balls in the air? Time. Management.
We took a look at some time management tools (so you don’t have to!) and decided that the most helpful information emphasized tried and true approaches and principles.
In an article in The Harvard Business Review, author Erich C. Dierdorff talks about the three most important skills needed to successfully manage your time. He says you need:
- Awareness: thinking realistically about your time by understanding it is a limited resource.
- Arrangement: designing and organizing your goals, plans, schedules, and tasks to effectively use time.
- Adaptation: monitoring your use of time while performing activities, including adjusting to interruptions or changing priorities.
And Time Management expert and writer Julie Morgenstern suggests “do’s and don’ts” of time management that include:
- Map out everything that is important, by making a task list.
- Set priorities.
- Create a period time for one to manage.
- Say “No.”
- Don’t drop everything when feeling overwhelmed.
- Don’t think a critical task will get done in one’s spare time.
So before you download apps or read a book or just throw your hands up in surrender, spend some time assessing your skills as outlined by Dierdorff and then make your own list of do’s and dont’s and review it at the beginning of each day. And if you have any strategies that worked for you, please share!