I Need More Than 24 Hours in a Day: Tips on Time Management

By Lily Ng

In college, one of the most important skills you should learn is time management. Aside from the realization that you just cannot keep the same pace you had in high school, there is also that guilt you feel when you have to choose among the many academic, social, and personal tasks you must to tackle. These obligations often times forces one to hone in on time management skills such as prioritization and multitasking.

To this day, two years out of college and in “the real world,” I still find myself in situations where I have to be in two places at once causing me to figure out how to prioritize errands, people, and personal time. Given my hefty load of activities and obligations, I can say that I have learned how to manage my time quite well. I would not call myself a professional at managing time, considering there are still many days of when I am left exhausted from life; however, I do have my sure-fire methods that tend to help me manage my time. Below are some things that work for me that you may find useful when exploring ways to manage your time.

Old-School Planners Still Do the Trick
Call me old-fashioned, but I still carry around a spiral monthly planner. The reason why I don’t have an hourly one is because I am the type of person who would actually book myself by the hour and not allow room for let’s say a delay in public transportation. If a task is written in ink, then I know it’s an unavoidable, must-do. If it’s in pencil, then I know that the activity is either a tentative decision or can be postponed. The monthly calendar is also helpful in providing an outlook of what other commitments I have for the rest of the month or months ahead. Know your style and what methods/ devices you respond well to, because there is no point in putting the effort into writing these things down or inputting into Google Calendar or Blackberries when you won’t commit it to later on - that would be a waste of time!

Don’t be a Control-Freak: Replace Yourself and Delegate
I used to be somewhat of a perfectionist and told myself that nothing will ever be done right unless I took on the task myself. These instances were usually attributed to events and activities that I have done many times before, given I knew the ins and outs of how to execute it. Over time, I realized it built up my anxiety and contributed more to my perfectionist behavior. As a leader, it’s always important to occasionally remind yourself that you are replaceable and can actually do more for those around you by delegating tasks or asking for help. I am not saying you should suddenly become lazy and take advantage of the next person you see. During tight schedules you should mentally work out the process that would provide the best results for the constituents you are trying to serve. If you have a group of people who already agreed to help you, like an elected executive board of an organization, great! If you are the only designated leader in the group, don’t feel like the world is going to tear apart because you won’t get to everything in time. Ask for help. More often than not, people are willing to lend a hand. Remember to always give credit to and appreciate those who have assisted you - I always have boxes of blank thank you notes ready. Just be ready to return the same type of favor in the future.

Tune Out Those Time-Consuming “Frenemies”
This may be obvious, but don’t waste all your time socializing or partying with friends when you have a big deadline or project due in the next week. Case and point - During my senior year, when I should have focused on writing my senior thesis, I found myself being distracted by one of my good friends. As my fellow executive board member and co-choreographer of a student dance group, he would constantly ask me to summarize emails that went out to the group and relied on me to promote our performances and other social events. He viewed me as “the party planner”, even though this was not my designated role. Whenever I confronted the issue, the general kiss-of-death response I would get is: “Oh, but Lily, it’s just that I know you are so organized and good at what you do. I can always trust you with having the right information.” In essence, I had to sacrifice the focus that could’ve been spent on my thesis in exchange for a better informed friend and fellow executive board member. I knew then that I had to reconsider how I spent my time. I felt like an unpaid assistant who was being limited to a title that didn’t really define what I was capable of. It is never wrong to want to help a friend or teammate, and you should always be happy when your friends acknowledge these great leadership qualities about you, but you have to decide for yourself what is actually worth listening to and investing your time on. Taking minor acknowledgements and eventually pigeon-holing yourself into a status that limits your actual creativity can be a waste of time, as it was for me. Learn to recognize that expectations of yourself and expectations others have of you may be different from one another.

The items mentioned above are a few things I do to manage my time effectively. I’d love to hear what tips others have about time management. Feel free to comment.