The mental devices for time management

Time management has been one of the focal points in management literature for a while. With ever-increasing awareness, most people, rightly look for ways to improve their time management skills. Time along-with health are our most critical resources. If we have both, we can always find ways to meet other needs healthily.

We need mastery of two skills for time management - 

1. Ability to prioritize tasks

2. Ability to complete the tasks on time! (I will re-write this by the end of this post)

The Theory of prioritization

There are numerous YouTube videos which explain how to prioritize tasks. The Eisenhower matrix provides a solid framework for prioritization. It decouples importance and urgency. In very simple words, it says prioritize important but non-urgent things over unimportant things. It is theoretically sound, however it is not motivational enough to get you to complete the tasks.

Take the example of taxes, a lot of people wait for the last moment to file taxes even though they are due a good refund. Moreover, if something is important, but not urgent, it is a matter of time before it becomes urgent! So there is a case for an attitude of - "let it become urgent, and I will take care of it anyway!"

A Story 

Long before I came across theories of time management, I had learnt a very different way of time management from my boss at the time. 

As I was completing an assignment on the job, my boss realized that I was going through a circular method. Instead of blindly guiding me to the easier solution, he asked me, what is the return  you will get for this effort ? He then went on to say, before you start, take a bigger picture view. Evaluate, and then proceed. 

Lesson 1 - The Motivational Effect - What is your return

That had a profound effect on me. It was the stimulus I needed to start thinking differently. The question naturally comes, what does return have to do with time management? And how is that kind of attitude useful for time management ? It might even come across as selfish.

It will start to make sense when you take the broader meaning of return. Every effort you make should either help you feel happy or satisfied, or feed you, or help you in some other goal. The returns could be either physical, mental, material or spiritual without harming anything or anyone else. This kind of thinking pattern becomes a mental device created by your consciousness that gets you invested to pay attention on the task at hand. 

Applying this to the taxes example, wouldn't you be more invested to complete taxes earlier if you know you can use the refund (if due) to fund a future trip of yours, or use it to invest in a Roth account (in US), or use it to fund one of your favorite skill classes...rather than just get a refund into your bank account ? 

Lesson 2- Completing Tasks on Time 

I have had a few examples where I have observed myself do mediocre work when I have tried to complete something fast!.  A rash driver is too concentrated on driving fast to pay attention or plan for a sudden uphill or downhill on the road. He is also unreliable. Similarly, one who blindly tries to complete his or her tasks fast runs the risk of unreliability and mediocrity. They are too focused on doing things fast and will not be able to take a bigger picture view; and re-evaluate if necessary. 

The trick to completing things on time is doing it slowly with attention. When you are able to pay attention, the dimension of time goes out of the equation momentarily. I would prefer training for undivided attention on the task at hand and readily shift attention to something else when necessary.

When you are able to pay attention, almost always the tasks will be completed on time! If that is not the case, then something is wrong with the input (in this case tasks you assign yourself!) or the timeline is unreasonably aggressive!

Therefore for effective time management, we have to master two things -

1. Prioritizing tasks - I tend to agree with Eisenhower matrix for this aspect..

2. Giving our undivided attention to those tasks! - This becomes personal, we can design our own tools for this!... I used motivational incentive in this post.