Learning to Manage Your Time Can Help You Feel More in Control

There is a saying: "If you want something done, give it to a busy person". Suggesting that some people are just naturally better at managing their time. But for others, this is such a huge issue, that entire books have been written about it.

Try to imagine time as a box, into which you pack all the events of the day or week ahead. It is very important to be able to visualize the items in that box and see how much space still remains between them. If they are too tightly packed, then chances are, you will begin to run behind on your schedule, because events have a way of becoming longer than you had planned, so you need to have some wiggle room. 

 For example: A friend agreed to drive you to downtown for a job interview. But now, only 20 minutes remain to get to downtown and she still hasn't arrived and can't be reached on the phone either. Solution: next time, don't depend on anyone else to get you to an important appointment. 

Here are several problems shared by people who have trouble managing time. 

 1. They don't plot their appointments on a notepad or day planner, to see if their schedule makes sense. 

 2. They overestimate their ability to keep appointment order and times straight in their minds.

 3. They don't monitor their watches or phones to see if they're on schedule. 

 4. They stack too many events close together, without factoring in travel time.

 5. They make excuses to others each time they are late, without ever taking measures to correct the underlying problems. 

 6. They don't understand what all the fuss is about. 

 The result of all this lateness is that friends and associates begin to lose faith in the tardy person's level of organization and then extrapolate from there to make other assumptions about them. For example: they don't care about other people's schedules, they tell white lies to cover their mistakes, they're scatterbrained, they cannot be relied upon in an emergency and they're untrustworthy. 

Simple methods for managing your time

 A. Write down appointments on your calendar, for the month, week and day. And if you own a device that can create reminders, use them. Preferably schedule reminders one day and then 2 hours in advance. 

B. Reverse engineer your day. Here is what I mean. Let's say your week starts out with one appointment at 6pm on Wednesday. Then, as the week progresses, you have to fit other people or events in on the same day. Work backward from your latest appointment (6pm), which let's presume is in downtown. 

 OK, it will take an hour in commute traffic to get to downtown from the suburbs, where another client wants to set a time to see you. So you will have to leave the burbs at 5:00pm. You anticipate spending an hour with the client in the suburbs and so you need to schedule them for 4:00pm. Then you hear from a friend who wants to meet for a late lunch on the same day at a new Mexican restaurant in North County. It is approximately 30 minutes to North County from the suburbs at midday. With waiting and ordering, it might take an hour and a half to enjoy a relaxing lunch and catch up. So you will schedule lunch for 2:00pm, two hours ahead of your 4:00pm appointment. Now, you can be assured you will have plenty of time for everything and everyone and you can just relax and focus on your activities. 

To a great extent, happiness can only begin to rise inside you when you are relaxed. You cannot be relaxed if you are continually running late. Pile on top of that the feeling that you are overwhelmed with your responsibilities and then the guilt you feel about leaving your friends and associates waiting.

To reinforce the point: happiness is a natural state that we are meant to experience most of the time. It may seem that there is a cosmic conpiracy to rob you of joy, but actually, we are the ones mostly responsible for our own unhappiness. Small actions and adjustments in the way you respond to your life can make a huge difference in your happiness quotient and knowing the day ahead is well planned and that you will easily be able to meet all of your commitments leaves space in your life for happiness to grow again.