Managing time alongside your job can be a daunting task that can seem impossible. Many people have given up on their life ambitions because of time management and due to the fact that they cannot fix things in such a tight schedule especially doing a 9 to 5 job, it can seem almost impossible to achieve.
Time is money as they usually say and that’s why it needs to be well managed so that it can be a profitable asset.When you work for someone or a company, your time is purchased and you’re tasked to do a certain thing within those periods.
And since most companies obligates that you should only perform their own tasks from 9 to 5 in the evening, the remaining time is yours.
Most at times, you are still unable to own your time because you have outstanding tasks that you’d like to complete within your own time and that kind of take your entire liberty away and it’s as if 24 hours isn’t just enough any longer.
And since time scheduling is a very important thing, it wouldn’t only help you become better in your career as an IT practitioner, it will also improve your health and well-being because your social and personal life will be well balanced.
But this can’t be achieved by just imagining it. There needs to be a whole lot of drastic steps to be taken to achieve all these. And the most important thing you need to do is always scheduling things. Plan your day, and your week.
And then make sure nothing comes in unnecessarily within those times planned unless necessary and if anything do come up, you are still able to fix that time within another time and therefore, none of your time is wasted by any means.
Anyway, here are expert’s overview on time management while still balancing it along with your business on the normal scale.
Home to Work distance
If you don’t know, the number of hours you waste traveling from your home to work every day is actually part of what’s disrupt your chance of making valuable time for yourself.
As mentioned earlier, your time is been purchased because you sold it anyway and so you must utilise those time sold to work for someone.
The time you have right after 5:00pm is yours and wasting majority of those times traveling back to your home is a really big problem because you’re still not going to have any time for yourself.
Majority of people who work 9 to 5 don’t realise this and the funniest is the amount of payment they earn at the month.So being able to manage your dear time is a very important factor to achieving a stable life that can be productive.
What to do if you live too far from your work
Because you’re stuck in a bus or train for hours trying to reach your home there are variety of things to exercise your mind in order to achieve a sound mental health for better productiveness.
“Read books” that’s what an expert on career development from California said.
Although you might be as tired as a horse and without any strength because of the long time you’ve wasted sitting down on a chair staring at a computer for hours. Being able to concentrate on a traditional book might be an issue.So here is what you need to do to achieve that.
#1. Take a nap
Each time you hop on the bus, schedule an alarm and then take a nap. Depending on how long the journey is going to take.
While sleeping with your head bent forward or backwards in a moving vehicle wont guarantee you a sound sleep, the most important thing is to relax your mind and let go of your worries for that moment. Don’t even think at all but relax.
Depending on how many hours you’re going to spend on the bus, that should determine how long you should sleep.You can time your sleep for 30 minutes or even 45 minutes.
Just take that time right immediately.But what if you drive your own car, after all, you can’t sleep while driving unless you’re seeing yourself in 2050 when driverless cars would’ve become the mainstream. Anyway, welcome to the world of technology.
Listen to your favourite music for those moments and keep right beside you a bottle of water to rehydrate yourself along the way.
Music relieves the mind from stress and depending on the type of song you’re listening to, that would determine how much strength you’ll gain and the courage you’ll get to face the remaining of the day. Just as you’ve scheduled your nap, do the same for the song you’re playing.
While the person who naps might have a better advantage over the person who is still burning his energy while driving his car back home, the most important thing is to keep your mind awake and alive.
#2. Read and Listen
Depending on the country where you works, you should read when your alarm blares off.Wake up relax a bit and then get your book out.
Now, the whether might be dull and it’s never advisable to read books with a touch light, that’s why you need a tablet computer.With lots of Cheap tablets out there, you are covered.
Just get your hands on one and then download ebooks on whatever topic you’ll love and therefore read it while you’re going back home.
The reason for this is because reading won’t only keep your brain healthy, it will also help you learn more about yourself or about whatever it is you’re trying to learn at that moment.
And we all know that learning is a lifelong process that never ends, you should keep learning. While someone driving a car might not be able to read books in his car, you should listen to audio books right after the music you’re listening to runs off its scheduled time.
#3. Learn by Practicing
This aspect is great for those that don’t drive while coming from work.While you’re sitting in a bus or train for such a long time, you might want to practice some things that you’ve learnt.While the best ways to learn is by practicing, you should realise how important it is for you to practice those things you’ve learnt.
The first thing is if for example you were reading about Web design for example and you learnt a new skill or new way of improving your skill, you might want to practice just that. While there are lots of Mobile apps to learn programming you can get those on your android tablet or iPad or Windows tablet computers.
Try to solve those problems and that’s it. And if you’re learning about designing, a Windows PC might be the best option over an iPad or Android tablets. Though these ones might be a bit more expensive. But the most important thing is to learn something.
#4. Think and Rationalise
While you’re driving home, you should think about solving problems. For example if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, it will be a great thing if you start rationalising things and understanding how somethings happens and other things doesn’t.
Think about common problems you can help solve and how to solve those problems.Who knows, you might come up with some really awesome ideas that can be your blueprint eventually.
So always think while listen to inspirational books. You can also listen to books about your practices and fields to better improve your abilities and skills to being better version of yourself.
Write down your plans
Procrastination is a very deadly venom that kills way faster than gunshots. It’s a very bad habit to procrastinate. While the main cause of this is by not writing a strict rule on how to spend your time, you’ll realise how far you’ve struggled to achieve something over so much time.
While at work, be sure to keep your time table standing in front of you or pasted near your calendar.The most important thing is keeping your daily time table where it would be easily seen by you.
If you’re working in an enterprise or wherever you work, make sure to always upload your daily tasks into the ERP every morning to plan your day.
Keep your alarm consistent and in no time, you’ll be used to such plans and schedules and you’ll start following your daily routine as at when due.
Plan for goals
As said earlier, schedules are very important. And even written timetables are awesome. While that’s a great way to start your day and keep your time over whatever you do in check, you should also plan for goals.
Every day or every week, plan what you want to achieve right at the end of that same day or week.If you’ve written down various things you want to achieve, then aim towards those things and be strict with them.
While you shouldn’t allow an inch of procrastination into your affair because it would disrupt nearly everything you’ve built, you should know how important it is for you to achieve those goals at the end of it all.
Prioritise everything
On the scale of 1 to 10 write down your priorities for the day or week in a descending order whereby the 10th is the least important. Make sure that each of those priorities are timed so they don’t conflict with one another. But the most important thing is to prioritise everything.
Time to be spent on the most important things would be more than the least important. That’s where prioritising your dear time ad managing it comes in.
To do this, you can always use a spreadsheet and and then map everything in cells with the time at the top of the each cell.
Avoid Distractions
As a computer programmer, or an IT administrator for example, avoiding distraction as at when important is very critical. Because this jobs demands some amount of time to achieve goals and so a great deal of attention is always needed for speed and accuracy, you need to avoid distraction as easy as possible.
How do you do it, get yourself distraction-free headphones and listen to music or inspirational talks or books while you work.
Sometimes, you might want to work in a quite place. If your office have quite rooms like library or some inner room or even the conference room, you can utilise these places for quietness and perform your tasks based on their priorities.
Always plan ahead
I’ve seen varieties of IT personnel and tech official who are still able to achieve big things while keeping their jobs on the steady move.
How they did it… Planning ahead.Just as planning for goals, the difference here is that everyday or every week, you know what you want to do.
That is you already have the map of how your day will go and how you will achieve your day based on those planned maps. This way, you have a directional path you’re going to take with your task making it easier for you to achieve your goals without any problem.
Socialise and Relax
All works and no rest is a terrible thing to do. Whenever you work every day or week, there is a need for you to always relax at the end and socialise by meeting with people and friends you live.
While that should be part of your priority, meeting people you care about helps give you the sense of belonging and that joy of not being a loner. Ones in a while, you can schedule a meet up or a family get together to make this happen.
The moment you live your life in complete isolation, you might end up having some chronic diseases or even falling into depression.
While meeting people or socialising might be quite a big task for you to achieve, you can always do this by going to events.
Every week, there are numerous sporting events though some IT programmes and parties happens just ones in a year or quarterly. For example, TechCrunch Disrupt or Mobile World Congress, being able to keep up with your society is by staying in touch with people naturally every now and then.
Time is important
In other words, every time you by can never be gotten back. That is why every moment count as an IT expert trying to climb to the peak of your career.
When you plan your time with all the necessary tools and and self discipline, you will realise how great you’re able to work and how far you’re able to go in such a few moment.
Also planning your time is essential if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur because you need time to create your own business plan on the side while working.
And since you cannot purchase time or hold back time, it’s important to make the best use of every moment you find yourself right in so that each moment counts in your lifetime.