The Art of Prioritizing: Managing Your Time Wisely

From all the years of childhood, we spent going through the days like we had an everlasting supply of time -- now we must face the consequences in adulthood.

One thing that was not told to us when we were children is just how important it is as we age to manage our time very well. From our never-ending busy schedules at work to other responsibilities we face daily, time just doesn't seem unlimited anymore, does it?

Time management is a concept that I truly only learned when I took my first undergraduate class as a freshman. I just knew I had to get my perception of time under wraps because I quickly saw how demanding college truly was. However, even after I graduated from college, I realized that it was even more important to manage my time well because now I didn't just have to manage school assignments, finals, and due dates but I also had to manage a work agenda, making time for my partner, putting aside time for family, etc. It became apparent that time was not added abundantly to my daily schedule so, I had to get creative with the time I had. How many of us can relate to that?

Although you have experienced the drawbacks related to not managing your time effectively such as arriving late to an appointment, missing an important deadline, or simply burning out, it is not too late to turn things around. By utilizing some fundamental tips related to time management, you can start to train or retrain your mind to be a time-effective machine. So, how do you do it?

Prioritizing Tasks

A, B, C, D, E, F, G? I thought the alphabet was just for the basics of learning how to communicate. WRONG. As much as we know that A comes first in the alphabet, we must be mindful that there is always something that is of higher significance or importance in our daily schedules. So, when prioritizing tasks, think about what is at the start or beginning of your daily task list and work your way down. You can also simply label your tasks as low priority, medium priority, or high priority. Now tell me you don't feel more confident going into changing into a time-effective machine.

Utilizing Planners and/or Calendars

One of the most effective ways of managing time effectively is utilizing planners and/or calendars. From those daily, monthly, or yearly planners that you can find in stores to the calendar software through Google, Outlook, etc., you can use whatever you are most comfortable with. From experience, I can tell you that a lot of your worries will start to fade away when you realize that you have written down all of your deadlines and due dates. As we get older, who wants to remember everything in their head?

Color-Coding Tasks

Green for tasks that you want to do right away, red for urgent tasks, yellow for moderately important tasks, etc. It doesn't matter what color you use to color-code your tasks, as long as you remember what each color does. In college, if a task was something I would enjoy, I would label it as my favorite color, pink. When pink appeared on my list, I would get super happy and it would just motivate me to complete the task. I guess that's just how the mind works, right?

Overall, time management is a skill that every person on this Earth should utilize because we all get the same number of hours in a day. What truly matters is how each of those hours is utilized to make it work for us and our individual lives. You will not only feel more in control but more empowered to never go back to the old way of managing your time. Your future self will sincerely thank you for putting less stress on your body.

Want to know the top digital software I've used to manage my time effectively over the years and how I made the work it me? Please make sure to subscribe to my stories so you are alerted of my next detailed post that will go deeper into your newly adapted time-effective machine mentality.