Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Time Management
Time Management
BY
DR. U.J. NWOGU
INTRODUCTION
Many managers and administrators have for a long time paid lip-service to the
issue of time as an organizational resource. To many of these organizational
leaders when the term resource management is mentioned what comes to mind
are finance, facilities and personnel. Such leaders forget to realize that time is a
basic organizational resource that guides the activity of the organization.
Lunenburg and Ornestein (2008:94) states that “effort concerns the magnitude,
or intensity, of the employee’s work related behaviour”. This intensity is
closely related to the time spent on such work related behaviour hence it is
necessary to manage time.
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Pickle Jar Theory: This was developed by Jeremy Wright (2002). Its central
thesis is that time is a finite space which can be filled with things of different
shapes and sizes. Therefore activities and responsibilities include studies,
workload, family, responsibilities, religious activities, rest and sleep among
others. The balance between life and work is dependent on the amount of time
given or allotted to each of these activities.
When this is properly managed it is assumed that there is a balance between
personal life and work generally referred to as Quality of work life balance.
Academic Achievement
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From the above we can infer that the opportunity to learn (time provided),
ability to understand and quality of instruction are related to provision of time
while perseverance and academic achievement reveal the consequences of time.
In view of the forgoing Nwabueze (2016) and Ebong (2011) submitted that
timing the work is one of the most motivating options needed in all educational
instructions for the attainment of goals.
Clarification of Concepts
Duration refer to the entire time taken to complete an assigned activity.
Elapsed time is the time spent between designating a resource to a task to the
completion of the task. This is usually expressed in milestones.
Here, valuable time cannot be traded or toyed with. It is an essential time in the
students or manager’s life and should be highly protected.
On the other hand doubtful time is not to be ignored but properly utilized it’s
limitation is the probability in meeting up with such time although great effort is
made to utilize the time for greater success. It is most times interrupted by
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unforeseen circumstances. Useless time could be seen as spare parts. They are
not in the actual sense useless.
In another dimension Adams (2013) submitted that there are challenges in the
management of time in all organizations and individual lives. These challenges
in most cases lead to chronic organizational stress, discomfort, fatigue or at
extreme times burn out.
1. Track your time – This involves carrying a note book and taking stock of
routine activities of the individual or organization.
2. Setting SMART goals where
S - Setting specific goals
M - Measuring goals
A - Achievable goals
R - Realistic goals
T - Timed goals
3. Following up your plans of action.
4 Converting your specific goals to a “to do list”
5. Prioritizing your goals by listing at least the first (1st) – sixth (6th) goals
that must be accomplished in their order of preference.
6. Reducing your activities.
7. Schedule blocks of time to do tasks by specifying time for each of “it do
lists”.
8. Stick to the 80/20 rule which states that 80% of your efforts will bring
about 20% of the results and on the flip side 20% of your efforts will
bring about 80% of your results.
9. Balance your routine personally and professionally.
10. Be flexible with your time especially during emergencies and unexpected
events.
11. Organize yourself.
12. Organize your environment.
13. Set reminders.
14. Identify bad habits
1. It produces less stress through fewer tight deadlines, less rush etc.
2. It increases productivity.
3. It leads to less work, less mistakes and helps in the remembrance of
forgotten items.
4. It creates more free time.
5. Reduces waste of time.
6. Creates more opportunities.
7. Improves your reputation.
8. Helps you to spend more time on things that matter most.
Below are some of the skills necessary for good study habits.
1. Training of cognitive ability – This requires physicals, mental, rest,
balanced and regular diet.
2. Thinking positively – This requires the reduction and elimination of
thoughts of boredom, frustration and other negative thoughts that affect
performance.
3. Development of personal study habits that fit your personal life style.
4. Monitoring your progress.
5. Doing your most difficult task when your energy is at its best.
6. Working for a set period of time.
7. De-emphasizing ideas that are burdensome and distracting to enable the
completion of tasks.
8. Developing work or activities into steps such as selection of topic,
brainstorming, collecting of data, planning your writing, identifying your
audience, generating draft, evaluating the draft step by step, revise,
rewrite and proof-read.
9. Form or create mnemonics.
10.Create acronyms using first letters of words.
11.Underline or highlight important concepts that need retention.
12.Take notes.
13.Evaluate yourself by generating questions and providing answers.
14.Form study groups.
15.Provide concept maps.
16.Make a summary of key points.
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References
Adam, S. (2017) How to manage your time and boost your productivity.
Retrieved from www.discoverbusiness.us/time
Craig, J (2013). The top 10 life benefits of time management. Retrieved from
Time management.com/2013.
Ebong, J. M. (2011). Timing the work, watching the time: The key for
productivity. An inaugural lecture, University of Port Harcourt.
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Practicum
A post graduate student of Institute of Petroleum Studies left his hostel at
exactly 7am in order to meet up with the volume of assignments for the day and
also to prepare for second semester examinations scheduled to take place in two
weeks’ time.
Each of the assignments had different days of submission ranging from 15th
January, 2017 through 20th January, 2017.
On arrival to the school that morning he met with five of his course mates who
had just returned from the xmas and new year holidays. They were busy
discussing about the economic recession, the Rivers State re-run elections with
its security challenges and other current global challenges in the world economy
including the suspension of MMM.
Although these were not part of his scheduled activities for the day he joined the
conversation since he felt that it was still morning.
The discussion continued until when he realized that it was 10am. He quickly
discharged himself and went into the classroom for study. As he sat down to
concentrate his telephone rang and this was a call from an old secondary school
classmate who lives in London. By the time he ended the call it was 11.30am.
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