Introduction
The need for self-realization is one of the leading needs of the individual. It is the root cause of human activity aimed at creating benefits for themselves and other people. Self-realization is not a single action but a process of constant overcoming of internal contradictions by a person in order to fully reveal his strengths and abilities. Personal self-realization is a multifaceted concept: it can be considered not only as a process but also as a need, a goal, and a result. In modern society, a person cannot be successful without a conscious attitude to their life, and its design, without a life strategy (Alvarez Sainz et al., 2019). At the same time, the business environment is characterized by a constant effort to achieve maximum results while reducing costs. Therefore, it is necessary to form the skills of managing one’s self-realization through a set of specific strategies. The key feature here is the time management technique, which should be understood not just as a set of planning skills but as a complex system for managing personal activities.
With good time management skills, first of all, one’s productivity and efficiency increase, reputation can be built faster, and the amount of stress is reduced. Secondly, the goals are achieved faster, and one gets the opportunity to succeed in any desired area. There is a clear plan of action and recognizable steps when time management strategies are applied skillfully, and life gains structure and stability. Therefore, in my opinion, it is crucial for people nowadays to learn about time management, its’ different strategies and solutions, to ensure that their personal and professional lives are in order. In the globalized world, changes happen rapidly, new trends emerge every day, and various challenges arise in all spheres of life. Thus, my interest in time management is led by how necessary it is in my life, and how I can make myself more productive and successful using it.
In this essay, I will focus primarily on my personal time management strategies that help me in my everyday life. I will talk about the challenges I faced and how I overcame them through time management. It is also important to note how to evaluate one’s time management skills and recognize potential areas for further development. Subsequently, I will organize my writing with relevant headings and sub-headings to ensure better understanding and a smooth transition of my narrative. My main goal will be to discuss the time management strategies I find the most effective and helpful in my work, studies, and personal life.
My Time Management Skills
Identifying Areas of Strength and Development
Currently, I have identified my main areas of development as focus and self-awareness. Starting and concentrating on tasks can be hard for me, and my attention span requires improvements, so I have to work on my focusing skills to be able to block out distractions. This is a major priority for me right now as my studies and work depend on my ability to complete everything on time to avoid unnecessary delays. Another point of improvement is self-awareness – when I get deeper into my work, I tend to lose track of time for hours. While this, indeed, helps me concentrate and complete big parts of work in one sitting, it also can be harmful to other aspects of my life that I might not have time for after this. Time management requires operating one’s time efficiently, and losing several hours to deep concentration is counterproductive in most cases. Thus, I need to develop strategies to track my working time and remind myself of when I need to switch to another task.
On the contrary, my strength in time management lies in my ability to structure and prioritize my work. I am good at planning my steps and ranking them by their importance which helps me design effective and productive to-do lists for any task or assignment. By using specific strategies, I can identify the most pressing matters and swiftly plan how to resolve them in the most efficient way. I also have good knowledge of various time management tools, such as worksheets, for example, and I actively use them in my everyday life to help me gain consistency.
Tools to Evaluate My Time Management Skills
First of all, to ensure that my time management strategies are the most effective and suitable for my lifestyle, I evaluate my own skills from time to time. It helps me identify my strengths and weaknesses and understand in which direction I should put my efforts first. For that, I use various tests and surveys from the Internet – I prefer to do at least two to four at once to ensure I get the most comprehensive and unbiased results. For example, I often use the Time Management Skills Test on PsychTests (2022), as it provides a good estimation of my overall time management skills. I also tend to analyze my answers closely and write down points that need improvement while I am taking the test. There are many different tools to evaluate one’s time management abilities, and I try to use different ones each time.
My Strategies to Manage My Time and Their Results
Time management must be approached holistically, taking into account the emotional, intuitive, intellectual, and rational nature of a person. Aeon et al. (2021) add that time management, when applied correctly, enhances not only performance but well-being as a whole. When planning one’s activities, including self-development, it is necessary first of all to determine the goals and objectives both for the near future and in the strategic aspect. It should be borne in mind that any goal makes sense only when the deadlines for its implementation are set and the desired results are formulated (Aeon et al., 2021). Therefore, my main time management strategy is that after determining the goal, I design an individual program of events for myself that I use as a guide for my actions.
Choosing a goal is a mental activity aimed at obtaining a result, and activities are practical actions. To make a good time management plan, it is important for me to know exactly my time budget and the set of planned tasks. I also see it crucial to prioritize tasks and strictly follow them even when less important tasks are performed much easier and faster than more important ones. Strictly defined hours and days of the week should be allocated for the performance of regularly recurring work (Dierdorff, 2020). This, in my opinion, makes it possible to establish such a rhythm of work that will save a significant amount of time.
The personal plan must be realistic and not overburdened – I usually leave a reserve of time for unforeseen, randomly arising work (one hour a day or half a day a week). In addition, I constantly monitor the implementation of the personal plan, which makes it possible to identify reserves for further improvement and rational use of working time. This approach has helped me tremendously in my studies – I was able to organize my learning activities in such a way that allowed me to progress quickly. Moreover, I also had time for breaks and social activities to avoid burnout. All in all, this system is rather effective for studying or learning a new skill, as it helps me define specific goals and set milestones for myself that allow me to recognize my progress.
My Time Management Challenges and Development Activities
Biggest Challenges
The most challenging task for me was to implement time management strategies into my everyday life. It required constant conscious effort in the beginning, and often it was hard to stick to the routine. Moreover, learning how to prioritize tasks and avoid unnecessary actions was also complicated, and it was through trial and error that I was able to establish a working system. What helped me greatly to overcome these challenges is making a to-do list for every week – it combines goals and prioritization. A clear action plan was an integral part of my learning of time management. I have noted that actions without planning were the main cause of mediocre work results and unnecessary loss of time. A clear action plan implies that I can take any task and break it down into subtasks, the implementation of which will eventually lead to the goal.
Professional Development Activities
One of the fundamental principles of time management is prioritization, which means that one needs to decide what will be done first and what will be done last. Determining what matters and what does not is often particularly difficult, and requires a lot of decision-making (Dierdorff, 2020). Thus, one of the first professional development activities I used to improve my time management skills was learning how to prioritize.
The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1895 deduced the principle, which is called Pareto’s Law. These days, this law is known as the “80/20 rule,” meaning that 20 percent of the efforts produce 80 percent of the results (Mozafaripour, 2019). Thus, if I make a list of 10 things to do today, then there will be 2 items on this list that will be more important than the rest of the items combined. The hallmark of highly productive people, as Pareto suggested, is that they focus on a few important tasks and ignore a great many trivial tasks (Mozafaripour, 2019). Therefore, the key to success is to continually strive to make the most of one’s time. I found that if I systematize my life and mainly only on the tasks that are truly crucial to my development, then I can significantly increase my efficiency.
New Strategies I Have Learned and Their Effect
A new strategy that I had to learn to truly enhance my time management skills is the SMART system. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This model allows, at the goal-setting stage, to summarize all available information, set acceptable deadlines for work, determine the sufficiency of resources, and provide clear, precise, and specific tasks. With the SMART system, I became able to set my goals more effectively and produce tangible milestones for measuring my progress.
Each letter of the abbreviation SMART means a criterion for the effectiveness of the goals set. “Specific” explains what exactly needs to be achieved – for example, to learn the basics of programming. “Measurable” explains how the result will be measured – in our example, I should be able to write a beginner-level program after my studies. “Achievable” determines how it is planned to achieve the goal and whether it is possible to achieve it at all – learning the basics of programming by studying a paid course, watching YouTube videos, and completing exercises.
“Relevant” shows whether the implementation of these tasks will really achieve the desired goal – I will need to find courses and videos specific to the programming language I want to learn. Finally, “Time-bound” defines a time frame – the deadline upon which the goal must be achieved – in our example, a month. By combining all these criteria, I can identify a course of action that will help me achieve my goal. For our example, it would be “In a month I should be able to write a beginner-level program by learning through a thematic paid course, YouTube videos, and exercises.” This approach is the most effective for goalsetting and designing a plan of action for achieving specific targets. Using the SMART system, I was able to learn new skills much quicker than before, and it was rather motivating to see my progress through clear milestones. Currently, the SMART model is the most effective and important time management tool that I use in all areas of my life.
Conclusion
Time management helped me structure my life and develop a working system that allowed me to work and study more efficiently and with better results than before. Prior to introducing time management into my life, I thought I was just lazy and/or lacked the talent to learn certain skills. However, after I decided to change my approach to how I operate my time, I found that I simply needed a defined plan and a routine to follow to be more productive. When I first took a test to evaluate my time management skills, I was surprised to find how disorganized I was and how much time I constantly lost without making any sustainable progress. This spurred me to learn more about managing my everyday life, and it proved to be a valuable skill set that I needed to acquire in order to be successful.
For anyone who wants to take the Business and Management course, I would recommend first assessing one’s own attitude towards success and life in general. In business, it is imperative to have clear, attainable goals, be able to operate one’s abilities and time efficiently and know how to plan one’s actions. Without consistent dedication to continuous learning and improvement, it seems impossible for me to be a successful businessperson or manager. According to Alvarez Sainz et al. (2019, p. 635), “unaware of the advantages of a correct use of time, students often do not develop skills such as self-organization, prioritization of objectives and activities.” Thus, I think that, before taking this course, a person would need to enhance their time management and self-development skills to ensure they are the most productive in their work and studies.
Reference List
Aeon, B., Faber, A. and Panaccio, A. (2021) “Does time management work? A meta-analysis,” PLOS ONE, 16(1). Web.
Alvarez Sainz, M., Ferrero, A.M. and Ugidos, A. (2019) “Time Management: Skills to learn and put into practice,” Education + Training, 61(5), pp. 635–648. Web.
Dierdorff, E.C. (2022) Time Management is about more than life hacks, Harvard Business Review. Web.
Mozafaripour, S. (2019) 9 popular time management techniques and tools: USAHS, University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. Web.
PsychTests (2022) Time Management Skills Test, TestYourself by PsychTests. Web.