Background
What is time management? Time management is a term that has been long used to describe practices that a person will use to gain more time in their day, week, month or year. There are many ideas, systems, books and self-help articles that attempt to provide the right method for people to gain more time.
The truth is, you can’t manage time. Time is constant and therefore irreversible. It cannot be paused or rewound and we cannot simply get more of it. What we can do is manage ourselves more effectively around the time we have available.
You can't manage time. Time is constant and therefore irreversible. It cannot be paused or rewound and we cannot simply get more of it. What we can do is manage ourselves more effectively around the time we have available. Share on X
Understanding Time Management
If we take the point above, we can now describe time management as a collection of skills and tools that we can use to better organise ourselves and our tasks to ensure we are being more productive.
This means we work in a smarter more organised way. The skills and tools will allow us to maximise the use of our time and therefore get more things done with the time that we have available.
The 2 Aspects of Time Management
There is often an assumption that having the right time management tools will be enough to achieve the overall outcome of having more time. This sadly is not true. There is another side to time management and that is behaviour.
- Time Management Tools – The physical tools that we can use to help organise tasks and workload. See our articles relating to time management tools.
- Time Management Behaviours – Having the right attitude and mindset towards time and your tasks
You can’t have one thing without the other. If you focus just on one, it becomes much more unlikely that you will be able to manage your time well.
There are 2 sides to time management - tools and behaviours. You can't have one thing without the other. If you focus just on one, it becomes much more unlikely that you will be able to manage your time well. Share on X
Time Management Tools
To help understand what time management tools you need, you can use the 6 Principles of Time Management. These are:
- Planning
- Prioritisation
- Scheduling
- Organization
- Delegating
- Discipline
(c) Revolution Learning and Development Ltd – The 6 Principles of Effective Time Management
Time Management Behaviours
Time Management Behaviours refer to how our attitude and mindset affect our ability to get things done. For example, many people complain about how much they have to get done.
This means their focus is now on the negative aspect of what is currently happening. They are looking backwards at the problem rather than forwards and thinking about the action to get the task done.
What is Time Management?
So, what is time management? Time management is having the right attitude, behaviours and tools to effectively manage the tasks that you have to complete in the time that you have available to do them in.
Further Learning
If you wish to find out more about time management and gain some practical tools to help with your own time management then you may find a time management training course will help. Take a look at our Time Management Training Course for more details.
