Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Week 2: Personal time management tips.



Hello All,

The topic I’d like to discuss with you is about how do you manage your time.
This is something that affects all of us.

In the era of ever-increasing pressure on the outcome how can we manage our time not to lose control? 
Do we control what to do or maybe the environment decides what we do?
I personally do not feel that I have one hundred percent prescription how to compose my time.

Do you?

Here is the list of tips from different people of how they manage to have some time:

For individuals that do not want to discuss the time topic I have something lighter – weather.
Not too many days ago we had Easter holidays. 

Did you have trouble to distinguish whether that was Easter or Christmas?
I did. I also heard my youngest kid saying that it might be that Santa Claus will visit us :).
Usually that amount of snow is hard to get even on Christmas :). 

And this awful time change that took away 1 hour of valuable rest we could have. Do we need that ‘every 6 month time switch’?

Do you miss full blown Spring with a warm sunshine and green growing from everywhere?

Not only Poland suffers from the extreme weather – please see the short article regarding possible explanations of the weird weather we have:

24 comments:

  1. Luckily my work allows me to be relatively flexible while queueing the incoming tasks. However it also requires me to be well-organized to really get the things done so I do plan (from time to time). On the other hand I strongly believe, that it is also important to relax (even if it is not planned :) ). The outcome of my efforts vary. There are days when it goes pretty well, but sometimes I get the impression, that when it comes to me vs time - I'm not the manager...

    Regarding the other topic - I generally like winter, so I don't mind the weather :)

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    1. I believe that the secret is to keep trying to solve and organise things. The world changes continuously and so we need to continuously adjust our steps in doing things.

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  2. I started to manage my time about 4 years ago. Read advices presented by The Guardian were quite interesting but the most important thing for controlling my time have been starting of using my mind (because others' advices rarely fit to my life). For instance advice about playing piano each morning is not for me because I can’t play piano and additionally I don’t like music too much.
    Next I started to say “no” to others. Previously I had said “no” only if I had been sure that I hadn’t wanted to do something. Nowadays I often say “no” when I’m not sure that I want to do something.
    Another thing was prioritizing goals. I am surprised that I didn’t find such advice in the guardian (if it was not on the first few advices I should know why ;-)). By me it is important because when we have to make a decision what to choose immediately when you don’t have time for thinking what is more important. I often make a bad decision during time pressure.
    Another thing described in some advices is connecting two activities in the same article like travelling to work with a smartphone in hand. I don’t use tube or other public transportation so I don’t do it but I have a few own examples. For instance when I ride to work by bike I connect exercising with travelling. Or when I watch TV I’m trying to do in the same time another activity like ironing or exercising. Do you know what I can additionally do during cleaning house or gardening?
    At the and I have to say “I’m sorry our teacher, that’s all … because I don’t want to waste too much time on English ;-)”.

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    1. I agree with you on making priorities and saying no (well thought before).
      Making decision under time pressure is out of my top most favourite situations. I do like to have time to think and analyse. It might be that it is one of the reasons I do not have much time for actual execution :).
      Hey, you are not wasting your time :)

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  3. It’s hard to say how I manage my time. I’m always trying to make things - to do- list. These more important or things which a must do immediately I do first then I do the other ones. I’m trying not to leave anything for “last moment”, but sometimes I don’t have any choice. Often I tell people about things I must do so they may help me or remain me about them later.

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    1. I do not like leaving things for the last moment but unfortunately for me it is quite hard to avoid.
      You tell people about things you need to do when asked or "by default"? It takes some of their time but on the other hand they get informed about your availability so they can control better when and what the could ask you for - clever :).

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  4. I don't manage my time:)
    At the work I do every thing immediately I don't left anything for later after work I always go to gym after that I back to home.
    It is my typical day sow I don't need to make some list or schedule it is simple rule don't left anything for later just do it:)

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    1. Interesting. I must admit that I can't imagine to be able to do everything immediately. My work consist of quite some amount of long term projects that is why getting to state where I can say that all or at least most of my work is done is unavailable.

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  5. We need the time change to get more daylight in the waking hours during the summer and winter days. The farther north, the bigger the need, we just have to deal with it, there's no way around it. Just one more way we manage time.

    I hope this year was just an outlier and we won't see this weather repeating next year. The changing air and sea circulation patterns are worrying though. The fact that it's hard to predict weather is nothing new, but the problem is the changes are so quick, making it hard to adapt to them.

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    1. You are right - predicting weather has always been hard and mixed with some assumptions. Nowadays having BIGDATA available can even multiply the complexity assuming that scientists would like to use most of the data acquired till now.

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    2. Yes, but historical data may become less and less useful if the current changes in climate are man made, quick and unlike anything in the past. Although I suppose bigger amounts of current data can at least more accurately tell us where we are today.

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  6. I have no problems with the management of your time. I can accept
    work, education and training. How do I do it? Hmmm ... this is a difficult question. I just put together a plan and executes it. He gets up in the morning and start to enjoy life, even though I have a lot of activities can all accept. When it comes to free time, even though it's hard to believe find a moments to relax.





    Weather this year really surprise me. Winter turned to in spring rolls. At Christmas the weather was nice, and the temperature does not fall below zero.
    Easter fell on the snow and with him temperature, which beat the April records. I thought the Easter will be sunny and green  and on Easter Monday we will pour over ourselves cold water.
    Unfortunately, this year it was snowing "śmingus"  and instead to pour the water and we threw snowballs we moulded rabbits with snow :) 
    Even my little cousin came with a proposal to dress the Christmas tree and chatted about the gifts. In spite of happy holidays they missed the sun and greenery.
    Moreover , this shift it had a negative impact for me. I could not adapt to the rapid rises. For two weeks, I missed that hour. For me, the change
    time should be eliminated. It contributes to the spring solstices, weakens the body and leads to a worse mood.

    Fortunately, during the writing of this post the window is 15 degrees heat and sun shines. Morning warm rain fell, the trees are blooming, and the grass is green.
    Future longed for spring :)



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    1. I will comment regarding time shift. I think it could be eliminated without much difference to daylight hours.

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  7. I have been to few places where bikes were the most common source of transportation. I like this idea a lot. It is environmental friendly and also allows to unload the traffic. I used to use bike to get to my University in the past. I had to travel 20km one way but due to the traffic it took me less time to go by bike than by bus.
    And weather is really not an issue here. I know many people who travel by bike all year round.

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    1. 20 km by bike - quite some distance. Would that require a shower after the ride?
      BTW. I think you've mistaken the topics. Your comment landed in my post thread that is about time management and not cycling. Anyway it's fine for me. :)

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    2. ups next time I will stick to the topic :)

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    3. ok this time on topic :)

      I have some difficulties in managing my time but usually somehow it works.
      I recently discovered the Pomodoro Technique. It is a simple technique to improve productivity, concentration, motivation and clear determination of goals. The main idea of this system is to divide work into short 25minutes long slots interrupted by 3-5 minutes breaks.
      It is an easy way to improve concentration, knowing that after each 25 minutes of going the extra mile you have few minutes of total relax time.

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  9. A few years ago I've realized that I had big problem with my time management. I've tried to observe my daily life and I've found out some solutions which help me everyday:

    - Disable instant messaging/emails/rss notifications. I've set it to update once every hour instead of every minute. Thanks to it I'm not so often distracted and I can finish my tasks easily.

    - Try to make easy things first, so you will feel that you already have done something and you will get more power to finish you work.

    - If you want to relax, just relax. It's better than pretending that you are doing something but in fact you are thinking about something else.

    - Reuse you work - if you prepared some subject before it's good to use it again in different situation instead of starting everything from the scratch.

    - Don't delay your tasks. In many cases it's likely you will forget about it or start feeling that it's not so important so it could wait.

    - Don't waste your time on insignificant details - nobody will see it and it's much better to present completed work on time than refined but partially finished project.

    - Do not promise too much, often it's hard to define exact amount of time needed to finish project so try to give basic conception.

    - Choose tasks you like best - it's more likely you finish them on time.


    In my case these things work ;)

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    1. Nice one. I agree with disabling frequent notifications from email and other sources. I also try to implement DRY and KISS in applicable.

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  10. Great plan but in my case this is impossible. I have too many urgent issues which I must to the first.
    The other matters I will fix if you I have enough the time.

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    1. I have a feeling that too many urgent issues surrounds us everyday. The more of them you have to deal with the more uncomfortable you might get while they are gone.
      I believe that we are getting addicted to urgent issues existence.

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  11. I manage my time. I always try to extend time which I spend for pleasure, hobbies, friends and reduce this wasted on work and other mundane things.

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