Better Time Management - How to Create Time for Everything

Time management is the process of planning and controlling how much time to spend on specific activities. Good time management enables an individual to complete more in a shorter period of time, lowers stress, and leads to education success.

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Music "Into the Step" by Hidden
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Transcript

 Welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Dr. Paul. Edgy by name and by nature. The Psychology Podcast will provide you with a competitive edge from education through to registration. Dr. Paul supports your transformation into becoming a psychologist, counsellor or allied mental health practitioner. Now here's Dr. Paul. 

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you're on the world today. This is Dr. Paul bringing you another episode of the Psychology podcast. This time we'll be talking about tips to improve your time management skills, as we all know the pressures of life, particularly when you're doing work and trying to study at the same time. Life can get in the way and it's very difficult at times to work out how you can plan your days, how you can plan around your assignments, how you can plan to get the best out of you in the middle of your environment, given all the busyness that is around the world. So let's have a look at the top tips, the top six tips for time management improvement. When you learn to maintain good time management skills, you'll find that freedom from deadline pressures and the stress in general become less of a concern. 

When you have improved time management skills you will be more productive, procrastinate less. Yes that means put away Facebook, Insta and LinkedIn and have more time to relax at the end of a study period which then helps you to further decrease stress and anxiety while you're studying. Time management skills are like shoes, a good pair of old jeans. When you have tried a pair on before and you find what fits, it's just right for you, then that means that every person who has a different style or wants to work in a different way needs to find out what best works for them. So here are the top six list of things that you can do to improve time management. Number one, and it's a big one, and if you don't make lists, it's time to start making lists. The big thing about making lists is you actually have to use them though. 

You can't just make a list and have it sit on your sticky note on your computer or buy your desk side with a piece of paper and you've got all these items listed and nothing's crossed off. You need to set reminders on your phone, put the list on your computer and have time is set against that. Lists really do work well when you use them and one of the most important things is to make sure that your list feels attainable. Remember your smart goals. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistically and time bound targets is what you want to aim for. So smart the inagreant again, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. Now no one wants 30 items on the list to do at the end of the day. So you know looking at 20 items and you don't get anything done can be very demoralizing. So prioritize what you need out of your lists and plan according to your top one, two, or three. And what you will find is when you cross things off and people love accomplishment, they love to have achieved something in a period of time, whether that be a day, whether it be the working day, whether it be the working week, and look back and go, you know what, I achieved something there. You will get the best out of yourself when you make lists, you might make one for personal, for home or for work, and you cross off items on that list, specifically the ones that you need to have as a priority in your life. Number two, set deadlines. 

Again, there's no point in setting deadlines if you make executive decisions to always push them back. If you are trying to aim to get a project completed or you're trying to get your degree completed, Put a time on that, put a time limit on it. If you keep taking intermission in your courses, as much as that might be a joy to be able to take a break in between, all you're doing is pushing forward the time that it takes to complete your degree. And importantly, if you have to push it forward for very specific reasons, make sure that you allow yourself not to be so rigid in thinking that your deadlines have to be so specific at the expense of say your mental health, because nobody is capable of achieving deadlines if they don't have the capacity to achieve them with the capacity to think and work through the problems. School and education is demanding. We understand that. So set deadlines and try your best to stick to them. Set the deadline a few days before the task is absolutely necessary to be done so that you have a chance to review it. quite often students who have the time to take one or two days to refine their work before it's submitted will generally find more comfortable about the submission and feel that they will get a higher mark. And I guess as a person who marks that sort of work I would suggest the more considered assignments that are submitted with the thinking that sits behind it are definitely the ones that I enjoy the most and generally, quite often, they receive the higher marks. Number 3. A big one. Stop multitasking. 

Multitaskers often seem to think that they get more accomplished. They dart from activity 1 to 3 to 5 to 2 to 1 to 3 to 2 to 5 to 1. And unfortunately what happens is the productivity in focusing on one specific domain goes out the window. It is really important that if you cannot multitask effectively, then you will be aware that you won't be productive. So make sure that you are allowing yourself to be the most productive around having an efficient routine. And let's face it, our minds work better when we're truly able to focus and concentrate on one thing. So multitasking, if you capable of doing it, great. If you're not like the majority of people, then don't. Number four, well, delegating responsibilities. This is a big one. So if you live in a household and you have a family around you and you know you need to study and you know you've got a deadline coming up, you might need to know that you have support around you. And what's really interesting is people who often find it very difficult to delegate feel that they have a lack of control around what they're able to do within their environment, which is anxiety provoking. 

So no matter how good you are, we can't always do everything. So something has to give. If you are the person that cooks your meals in your household, you're going to have to say to your husband, your wife, your daughter, your son, someone that's living with you, a flatmate, a housemate, you're going to have to cook for the next couple of nights because because I got a deadline for a really important assignment. And delegation is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of intelligence. It says that you are so competent at your job that you're finding reliable people to share some of the responsibility and you're able to be less stressed and more productive. Number five, using your downtime. This tip really requires some getting used to and it requires some balance. So using your downtime for planning and prioritizing is bad and can lead to increased stress and burnout. What you wanna do is find yourself sitting in a position whereby you can really take some time out for yourself. For example, getting an application that does mindfulness and spending time reading a book that's got nothing to do with what you're studying. It's something that you enjoy. And it might be something that you can absolutely take a relaxing position towards and make sure that you really re-energize those batteries. 

You are no good to anybody if you don't take time out for yourself. Really stressed people, professionals, quite often tell me that they go for things like walks in nature. They walk the dog. They have a dog because they want to get out and walk. It's the reason that they get out and do something different. People who are perpetually in an on mode don't have a lot of downtime and therefore cannot relax. And so therefore don't recharge themselves. Now, linked to downtime, really important, reward yourself. When you've accomplished something, celebrate it. How do you celebrate it? Well, that's really up to you. A word of advice though, whatever you choose, make it healthy. Do not make it something you really enjoy. Do not go to excess. Do not let it cause you to get further behind. 

Time management skills are essentially a part of making your day just that little bit easier. Finding out what works for you and sticking to it is really important. And remember, break, take breaks, take another break and constantly work through. Forget the distractions, focus on the tasks, delegate other responsibilities that you can do. Don't multitask. set yourself realistic deadlines and start making lists. I hope that your education journey is all the more richer for having these six tips for improving your time management skills. I look forward to talking to you next time. (upbeat music)