Time Management starts with Self Management

‘Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.’

- Peter Drucker

The first step to effective time management is to agree and believe that you need to manage time. Being open to change is the most important and essential step.

Let’s consider that you have already made a decision and you are ready to put all your efforts in understanding and managing time. But, before you can start implementing a time-management methods in your organization, the change must begin with you.

It’s not enough to be busy.

The question is:

‘What are you busy about?’

- Henry Thoreau

Let's do an interesting, quick and effective exercise to understand your where do you want your time to go and where actually is it going.

Write down 5 points on a piece of paper about some of your wishes/ambitions that you want to fulfil and when do you think you plan to get there. It can be your short-term or long-term goals. For example,

Ambition	When
1. I wish to begin my own architectural business	Beginning of 2014
2. I want to learn canvas oil-painting	Next Month
3. I wish to have more personal and professional friends	Soon
4. I want to travel to international locations	Once in every year
5. I wish to visit my family	Once in 3 months

● Having done that, now create a list of activities that you did last week. Pick out any one day and write about the activities of those 24 hours. For example,

Activities	TIME
Sleep	7 hours
Cook (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)	30min + 30min + 30min = 1.5 hours
Eat (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)	2 hours
Morning walks	30min
Reading Newspaper	30min
Getting ready	30min
Housekeeping (Cleaning/laundry....)	1 hour
Traffic jam	2 hours
Office work	8 hours
Personal computer time (Facebook/email/chat)	30 min
Watch television / read a novel	30 min
Total	24 hours

Now, put both of these two lists in front of you and compare.

This is usually the ‘light bulb’ moment!

This is when you will realize whether you used those ‘86,400 seconds’ in the day to fulfil any of your ambitions from the wish-list. This is the point where you will realize whether your wish-list is a fiction or a possible reality. So, what is wrong?

Usually, the problem is that either your wish-list is too big or there are too many unimportant activities in your daily schedule because of which you are unable to reach your goals.

But you can only solve the problem only if you know the problem.

Thus, I would like to suggest you to take a few minutes to try answering the questionnaire below with full honesty. This is created to make you identify not only some time-wasters, but also some good time-habits which you may have in your daily life currently.

Download the Questionnaire: HERE

Remember, Time management begins with Self-Management!

Other Interesting Time-Management Articles:

· I s Punctuality important for Architects?

· How busy are we?

· What does Time mean for your architectural business?

· Where does the Time go?

· What is your Time-Management Style?

· Your possible Time-Wasters

· Poor Time Management Symptoms