I am falling short of TIME, Not sure where my day went….

We hear this often, right?

For people related to the textile/apparel industry, I need not emphasize the importance of time. Be it entrepreneur, student, working personnel, MD or CEO everyone has this challenge. Especially after pandemic managing time is one of the art which we are in the process of learning. 

Time - the treasure

In today’s scenario everyone knows the value & importance of time, the latest treasure which everyone wants to keep within control is time. Till sometime back money was regarded as one of the top priority in everyone’s life. Now the time has similar importance as money did, and it has reached a priority spot in everyone’s mind. In other words, the same can be described as time is money. 

All said & done, everyone, struggles to manage time due to the fact that they end up wasting their good amount of time.

Dilemma

We jump between many things in a day. Many times people feel they are constantly working on someone else's priorities instead of focusing on their own work. Most part of our day goes unnoticed with urgent calls and emails. The above scenario is common & running in most of our minds. It’s called Urgent vs Important Dilemma. Unless we realize this, it does not allow you to do your work effectively.

Priorities 

In this article am going to share my learnings in effectively managing "time- the treasure". You should start with classifying your daily activities based on  

1. urgent
2. important 

Let us walk through the Urgent vs Important matrix. It has 4 quadrants, as shown in the picture below. We need to classify our work in the below quadrants & learn the art of managing time with the help of this matrix, it helps in overcoming the challenges faced by us to manage "time- the treasure". 

Quadrant I-Urgent and Important- DO

Crisis management which you can’t afford to delay or slide further. For e.g. personal related like health, medical checkup, etc., Insurance renewal & others that have a deadline, crossed deadlines, etc. should be the key focus of the day and should be done on an immediate basis without fail. 

Quadrant II-Not urgent but Important-PLAN

It is more to do with the future, planning, strategies, learning & development of new skills, relationship building, etc., Quadrant II is one of the most important aspects of managing your time effectively. The more we prepare for this the easier it is for us to manage the time effectively forever.

Quadrant III-Urgent but Not Important-DELEGATE

Unwanted interruptions like questions not related to you or small talk. Unwanted calls, copied emails which you do not need to act on & meetings in which you an optional participant - all these are not directly relevant for you. Such things should be delegated as much as possible to manage your time effectively.

Quadrant IV-not urgent and not important-ELIMINATE

Busy work with no objective & growth. Time wasted on phone calls, emails, meetings & social media, etc., which has no relevance & eats up your time on a given day. We should know how to eliminate & avoid the same in order to manage time effectively.

Hope you got a fair idea on the Urgent Vs Important Matrix, what next?

Self-Evaluation 

To improve time management & effective working we need to understand the above matrix & figure out where we are on this right now. We should observe the % of the time we spend in each quadrant. Once we realize where our time is getting wasted unknowingly then it is easier to take corrective measures; consciously controlling & working towards eliminating our time wasters.

We all know what time wasters are, here are few tips to eliminate them.  

Track your mobile screen time, limit your social media use to specific times in the day, turn off notifications on your phone and computer to avoid distractions. Use an app to block certain sites & apps which eat up your time & you really want to minimize the usage. Leave your phone away as much as possible when spending time with your loved ones & when you really want to focus on your key activities.

Optimization 

Effective people spend 80% of their time in Quadrant II (Plan), which allows them to pro-actively work on new & future projects instead of spending all their time reacting to burning issues. When you focus on Quadrant II in advance, automatically it will reduce the burden of Quadrant I (DO) % which allows you to manage time effectively.

As a result, you can make significant progress towards your goals, actively prevent crises from happening, and lead a more balanced, calm, and focused LIFE.

Conclusion

Time- the treasure is a well-known fact of the textile/apparel ecosystem. Let us master our life by mastering our time with less of DO, more of PLAN, learn the art of DELEGATE & focus more on how & what to ELIMINATE. Do share your views on urgent vs important, four quadrants which help master your time to master your life.  

I hope you like this article; & I believe it has some insights on time- the treasure (master your time to master your life). 

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on the blog.

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,Ramesh Gunasekaran