Rory Vaden, the author of the book Procrastinate on Purpose, said, "Today, time management is no longer logical. Today, time management is emotional. Our feelings of guilt, and fear, and worry, and anxiety, and frustration, those things dictate how we choose to spend our time, as much as anything that's in our calendar or on our to-do list. In fact, there is no such thing as time management. You cannot manage time; time continues whether we like it or not. There is only self-management."
It is a fact unanimously agreed upon that the world around us has too many distractions, and no one is exempt from temptations. However, to succeed in reaching whatever personal and professional goals we have set for ourselves, efficient time management, or rather self-management is crucial because as Miles Davis said, "Time is not the main thing. It is the only thing."
One of the most highly recommended methods of getting things done is to prioritise the tasks based on its importance and urgency, and then to get them done in that order. However, this two-dimensional methods do not always work, since everyone has the same number of hours in a day. By adding a third factor to it, whether one can eliminate or automate or delegate specific tasks could prove to be much more efficient.
A method used by professionals from different sectors is time-boxing. Planning out the schedule of the upcoming day in specific timeslots and sticking to the schedule is highly useful, as it takes away the freedom to be distracted with the choice of figuring out what to do next. Elon Musk is known to follow this method, and in a page of his schedule released by a secretary, he had his day planned out as strictly as including five-minute slots. However, most people do not require doing that, and having tentative timeboxes can be effectual. Unexpected happenstances may make it difficult to follow the schedule, but in that case, it is recommended to keep working on the schedule as the day progresses and making changes as required. The app 'Do Now - Focused Time Boxing' is of tremendous help to follow this method.
The Pomodoro technique is a variation of time boxing, where twenty-five-minute-long timers are set to do a particular task. After twenty-five minutes one takes a five-minute break, then sets the timer again. After four twenty-five minute sessions, a more extended thirty-minute break is taken. This can be an effective technique to help one focus, especially for students, and avoid distractions. "This technique helps me focus during finals week, or sometimes a month," said a third-year BUET student. Apps recommended for this are 'Be Focused Pro', 'Tomatoes', 'Tadam' and 'Tomighty'.
Multitasking is not a good idea when it comes to being efficient in getting work done. Focusing on one task at a time makes it go much smoother and faster than dividing one's focus into two things at once. "The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time," said Mozart.
Getting things done can be made fun by the reward system. It is quite simple; completing a job brings a reward. For example, if one has to finish making the slides for a presentation but does not feel motivated enough to do it, setting a reward to be gotten after finishing the task-- anything ranging from watching funny videos to getting a treat for themselves-- will make him or her do the work for the end goal.
Managing one's focus can be made fun with the help of an app called 'Habitica'. It has various functions like to-do lists and daily, weekly and monthly goals and much more. However, the unique part of the app is that it has an avatar for the users, and completing tasks keeps it healthy and happy, and failing to do so makes it sick. Moreover, there are coins to be received for getting work done, and people can set rewards for themselves that they can do using the in-app coins. This makes real life a game and increases people's focus while making it a fun experience.
The most significant challenge, however, is avoiding the distractions that are provided by the mini-computers people have in their pockets and purses at all times. It takes great willpower not to waste the entire day on entertainment. Since switching off the phone is not always an option, trying to avoid time spent on chatting, watching videos, memes and click-baits is the only way. Moreover, since there are apps for everything these days, there are apps for battling smartphone addiction as well. Calculating the time spent on the phone would make people aware of avoiding doing that, apps like 'AntiSocial' and 'QualityTime' help with that. Some apps block specific apps so that people can focus on other things more, for example, 'AppDetox', 'Stay on Task' and 'OffTime'. Maintaining a physical notebook for daily planning can help with preventing getting distracted by other things on one's phone when trying to follow a schedule.
Overall, it is an internal battle of focus to manage oneself and be efficient in making the best of the time on any given day.
The writer is a first year student of BBA programme at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka. She can be reached at [email protected]
