Time Management

"Either you run the day, or the day runs you." -Jim Rohn

As much as it pains me to admit it, time management has been a long-time veteran of all of my self-improvement lists. From New Years resolutions to the classic first day of school "get-to-know-your-strengths and weaknesses" worksheets, better time management has consistently been one of my biggest works in progress. However, I am happy to share that as of this particular moment, I wouldn't say I am absolutely terrible with managing my time. But, since this has always been an area where I have struggled, I don't want to jinx it, and I look forward to continuously improving.

Something I've noticed about myself is that I get more tasks accomplished in a shorter amount of time when I have a jam-packed schedule. This seems so counteractive, but when I know I have a lot going on, I am forced to plan out every minute of my day in order to maximize my time and get done all of my responsibilities. This summer, I had three jobs, and the craziest schedule I have ever experienced. To balance everything, I invested in a scheduling planner that literally saved my life. I have continued to use this planner through the school year as well, and if I could ever give any organizational or time management tip to anyone, it would 100% be to invest in a planner.

A new strategy that I have been using after Mrs. Gagnon's lecture, is the priority matrix. It's been about a week now, and every morning I pull up my priority matrix app and plan out my day. This allows so much more free time to fit the "wants" into my day while still accomplishing all of the "needs" and I look forward to continuing to use this awesome time-management tool!

As far as time-waters go, my phone is by far the biggest culprit. I have been working on using it less and less, and I know that I will never be at my full time-management potential until I get my phone usage down to around 1 total hour a day.

Time management is something I am done putting off, and a skill I desperately want to master. Like every other "tool" in our "tool-belt of life" time management sharpens over time, and I can't wait to look at this post a year from now and reflect on how far I have come at running my day, so that it doesn't run me!