Developing Time Strategies

Time management has always been a term circulating my life from when it was told to me as a little girl by my parents and until now told to myself in college. However, it is still not an art that I have mastered. Reading through the articles about time management, I found some advice useful and plan on applying it to my life. The article 3 Steps to Recapture Time simplified how to have time management and I believe it is a very good starting point. I want to begin my first 15 minutes with prayer and deciding on the 3-4 things I will divide my time on. I have done this about two years ago then stopped; however, looking back to last semester I now realize the drastic negative difference my time management was between the semesters I did have the first 15 minutes separated from the rest of the day and the semester I did not. My biggest time challenge is separating more than enough time to do a certain job, then it takes me that long period of time to complete that job. For example, even though this assignment is estimated to take 30 minutes, I allot 3 hours to do it in my schedule. So I get started with the work at the beginning of the 3 hours but then distract myself because I know I have 3 hours to get it done. However, what usually happens is I waste 2.5 hours doing whatever I should not be doing. I hope to improve on this during the semester. I believe to help me with this, I will start a checklist as the article The Psychology of Checklists suggests. I believe the physical act of cross off the things I need to get done will motivate me to not distract myself or allot too much time to do work.

(Image representing time management.)