Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “what is the most valuable use of my time right now?” ~ Brian Tracy
How To Contol Your Time
Tell me, do you know a student that waits until the 11th hour…midnight the night before an essay or project is due and then they race the clock to complete their task ? Maybe one lives in your home…maybe you have a similar pattern of behavior.
There are many scenarios like this with students and many other people. Unfortunately, this practice often leads to results that are below average.
This type of scenario and many others like it happen for one reason. The reason is poor time management skills.
Lists can provide you with a realistic look at your workload. Often, people will put more on their plate then they can handle. We often need to see things all together on one comprehensive list to understand the magnitude of all that we are looking to accomplish
What can I do today to be better prepared ?
Whether you are a student in Middle School, High School or College, you need good Time Management skills to succeed.
If you have solid skills and you start at a young age, you will be well served as you become older and enter the work force.
Start by making daily, weekly and monthly goals – use a calendar or write in your agenda.
Make 2 lists:
Homework priorities
Personal priorities, such as sports, activities, family obligations, etc.
Prioritize each list into 3 categories to determine the importance of each task..label each category A,B,C…
A = critical – due tomorrow, prepare long term assignments/tests, mandatory after school rehearsal, etc.
B = important – extra credit assignment, club activity, etc.
C = nice to do – rewrite class notes, play video games, watch T.V.
Don’t put everything into the A list…if you do, you’ll be running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to accomplish all the tasks that must be done.
Task A should be related to a goal or has consequences if it is not completed today.
Sometimes B or C tasks become A tasks when you haven’t planned properly. Such as..procrastinating and then having to complete an entire project the night before it is due.
Sometimes events are out of your control, but you must adapt your schedule and accept responsibility. If you spend your time resenting the reality of the situation, you will just become emotionally upset and accomplish nothing.
Unplanned events and urgent activities, such as going to the hospital or Doctor with a parent happen. These urgent events are unrelated to your goal or consequence.
When you finally return to your priority, your creative momentum might be gone. You might even be distracted and have difficulty concentrating.
The recovery from the interruption might reduce the quality of your work.
Please watch this brief and see what can happen when our kids suffer from poor time management skills. Time management isn’t just for the parents, but extremely important for the success of our children, too.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifzn5rMsL0[/youtube]
So, don’t wait until the last minute to do your work !!
Anticipate that things can and do go wrong. Give yourself enough time to do a task right the first time. Have all the tools you need at your fingertips. Work without distractions.
Use a timer to give yourself 15 minutes, 30 minutes or a reasonable amount of time to complete a task. Use part of your time and give yourself short breaks to stretch, eat a snack, play with the dog, etc.
Set goals, plan ahead, do the best job you can do, get help when you need it and accomplish your priorities.
But, above all else, be proud of your efforts !!
I hope you got some great value out of this post today! Please leave me a comment down below and let me know what you liked the most.
And don’t forget to share this post with your Twitter and Facebook friends and followers!
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To your success,
Marc@monitium.com
Network Marketing Coach
Serial Entreprenuer
Skype: healthysuccess
(973) 879-1627
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About Marc Korn
Marc Korn is an advocate of continuous learning. Success online and in the offline world is all about training and learning from the experts.... throughout history the common denominator among successful people has been continuing education.Marc is passionate about Network Marketing and helping others.He has learned that Network Marketing is not about recruit, recruit, recruit or sell, sell, sell...but about people.The most gratifying way to achieve success is to help others become successful first.Marc enjoys introducing people to systems and opportunities that will help them to earn additional income working from home.There is no reason why you need to learn it all by yourself. Join Marc and his Tribe mates to see how they can help you.
Hi Marc ~ Perfect timing for these valuable tips & will be forwarding the link on to my son, who is in his final years of High School…he definitely has a challenge with Time Management and doing more than always what is required 😉 Christine
Hi Christine,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I’m so happy that you found this post to be helpful. Time Management is a challenge for many young Adults and it is so important to develop those skills early to save a lot of frustration later on.
Here is a link to a 25 page transcription of Brian Tracy’s “Eat That Frog”… you son might find it helpful..some great tips.
http://www.briantracy.com/freegifts/ETFTranscript.pdf
To your massive success,
Marc
First thing tomorrow, I’m telling my students about this post. Better yet, I’m printing it out for them. Really good info. As a teacher, I see the results of poor time management every day with my students. They always complain that they have too much home work, but I try to explain to them that if they manage their time well, they can actually cope. Your post illustrates a practical solution that is easy to implement and is sure to work well. Thanks so much from teachers everywhere!
Hi Hazel-Ann,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I’m thrilled that you feel your students might find this content to be helpful. How old are your students?
I hope your students are able to utilize some of these tips, because I still have my hands full with trying to get my own son to buckle down and improve his time management skills.
But, isn’t that always the way… kids will often listen to other adults sooner than their own parents..
Good time management skills will serve them well once they graduate and go into the next phase of their lives.
Have fun with your students!!
To your massive success,
Marc
Hi Marc!
Great post again and I love the short video… What I would like to add is that you need to take the time to plan all the task. If you don’t take that time conciously either in the morning before you start the day or the night before you go to rest then it will be a challenge to get even your list of things done.
Thx again for this hot topic.
Alex
Hi Alex,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I agree 100%… you must plan ahead. You must be organized and prepared or you will add stress to your day and NOT get your most important tasks done.
I like to list all the tasks that I feel are important to complete the next day. Once all of these tasks are listed, I review the list and re-write the list with each task listed in order of importance. This way I can tackle the most important one first and not procrastinate.
To your massive success,
Marc
We cannot read enough about time management. It seems like the days are getting shorter and shorter and the list of things to do is getting longer and longer as we get older. Time management can help us fight this daemon. You are bringing up another great point. If we teach our children time management, they will benefit for the rest of their lives. A skill that we all would love to master.
Hi Karin,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I guess I will have to write some more articles on time management…it is essential to get our children acclimated at an early age, because as they grow older…it is just going to get more and more difficult as they are faced with so many more challenges and obstacles.
It is an ongoing battle for many people to overcome procrastination and we must become as disciplined as possible and develop good daily habits.
To your continued success,
Marc
I remember when I was a kid, a long time ago, I wanted to be doing everything except my school work. It just didn’t seem fun to spend my time doing mundane tasks like learning history and reading Dickens and Shakespeare.
Of course, now I realize how important it is for children to learn time management skills as soon as possible and it is a lot better to start with a great foundation at a young age.
I often wondered why it is not taught in schools along with the traditional subjects.
Hey Trevor,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I know I certainly could have benefited if that was a course when I was in School. It is such an important discipline for kids…it should be taught in School. It wouldn’t just benefit the kids, but the entire educational system!!
To your success,
Marc
Marc,
Writting down goals and daily tasks are so important, but why is it that I also forget to do it?!? Also, I never thought of prioritizing daily tasks before….it makes so much sense.
What you have written are such easy things to impliment, but sometimes, I need the reminder!
Thank you Marc, working on my list now!
Kim
Hey Kim,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I’m so happy that you found the post helpful… making a list is always important, but I think what really helped me was when I learned to set priorities within the list.
It helps to really nail down what has to be done and what can wait. It helps to accomplish the more important tasks.
To your success,
Marc
Solid post and some good tips there Marc. I am a little puzzled if kids are in your viewer target. They don’t seem to be based on the rest of your blog, yet half of this post is spoken “to” them and a half is spoken “to” parents yet lacking in consistency. Its cool if your targeting students now but speaking “to” the right intended audience will really strengthen a blog as will not jumping back and forth. Parents today need a lot of help not only in their own time management but in better understanding how to relay that information to a teen child at home that may not exactly be receptive! LOL
Kimberly
Hi Kimberly,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
Thank you for the constructive comments. You are absolutely correct, my audience is Parents of School age kids, as opposed to the kids themselves.
But, I can see how the post would seem as if my target audience are the kids. I have tweaked the title of the post to better reflect my target audience.
Solid Time management skills are essential these days for kids as there are so many distractions that it makes it difficult for kids to focus on the tasks at hand and to attack their homework and projects on a timely basis.
A lack of discipline will certainly cause the entire family to experience stress.
I will look to be more consistent with gearing my blog posts to the proper target audience…great advice…thanks.
To your massive success,
Marc
P.S. Thanks for all that you are bringing to the TSA Community.
Great video, Marc! I really liked the video. It reminded me a lot of Stephen Covey’s Quadrant II. It’s amazing how many things become emergencies when you think that you’ve got all the time in the world. However, a lot of the things that we really want to do really take a while to learn.
Hi Steve,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
I’m so happy that you liked the video.
It is never to early to learn solid time management skills and it is never too late. It is a skill that when learned will help so many to organize their day and their life.
Many people fall into the trap that you mention as they fritter away valuable time, that you can’t re-capture and before you know it, deadlines are here and projects are being done the last minute under emergency conditions.
To your success,
Marc
I was actively involved with my golf when I was in school. Time management was really important so I could balance my studies and golf. Unfortunately these days I easily get distracted and get sucked in doing unproductive stuff like checking email and chatting on FB too often 🙂 My kids too will spend senseless hours on the computer if I let them. So, you’re right that we need to teach our kids time management.
I have a white board in my living room. So recently, I started to write down all the stuff I wanted my children to get done for the day. My kids took to the idea and have since taken over the task of writing their own to-do list. It’s been great. There is that sense of achievement ticking off the to-do items one by one.
Hi Lian,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
There are so many distractions these days, it can be an emotional roller coaster trying to stay consistent and focused on the task at hand, especially as a Parent when all sorts of things can throw your schedule off.
I love your plan with your kids for keeping them on task…excellent job and young children love that type of system, especially if there are rewards attached.
It is a great achievement to be able to cross things off our to do list…well done and thanks for sharing that great tip..
To your success,
Marc
Hi Marc:
I’ll have to write this down and give it to my daughter. She is the daughter of someone who has always had difficulties with time management (and to tell the truth, telling time), and now she is struggling both with herself and her children. And I can modify this to help me with my own cluttered brain. When I was a kid, I remember frantically trying to do an entire notebook the evening before it was due that I should have been working on for a month and my mom grousing at me. I still have a hard time making to-do lists and committing things to a calendar. Cute video. I’ll try to better!
Wishing you a song in your heart,
Miss Leslie @ Music with Miss Leslie.com
Hi Leslie,
Thanks so much for dropping by and leaving your comment…it is greatly appreciated.
When you have young children, it can be difficult following a time management schedule. But, it is more of a reason why we must try. There will be many things that come up that delay or cause you to shift gears, but if you can get back to your tasks and routine quickly, you should be fine.
That is a key reason to always try to leave plenty of time and not wait till the last minute.
Personally, I find that having a task list is not enough, but segmenting that list in priorities, as shown above helps to really focus in on what “MUST” get done and what can wait.
Believe me, when I was a kid..I had to learn the hard way, too. I would always wait till the last minute to study and do projects and then have to burn the midnight oil…not fun!!
To your continued success,
Marc
Marc, thanks so MUCH for this post! My son is having a big struggle with this right now, and so I, too, am going to forward this post onto him. I like that you broke it down into THREE subsets. Makes biting off and chewing much more manageable, and even tangible. I am also learning to manage my time better, so these tips are going to come in handy for both of us!
Thanks again!
God bless,
TK
Pingback: Effective Time Management Lessons for Students | Time Management Tactics
thanks a lot…..
Better management of studen’ts activities results in better results. THat is correct. As personally, I manage my two brothers, who are in 8th and 9th grade and they have shown good results than past.