Effective Time Management Strategies for Higher Education Success

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STUDY SKILLS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
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Time management is a method to use time in an efficient and effective manner so that tasks
can be completed prior to the deadline. It increases productivity, improves the work quality,
avoids distractions and reduces pressure and stress. Success requires proper time management
which includes planning, organizing, managing and setting up of goals and objectives. It
always motivates the individual to work harder. Time management inspires to attain less
effort because every step is already predefined in the planner. By this, an individual learns to
focus on their job and understand the value of responsibility. People use their past
experiences to avoid focusing their energy on useless steps and rather implement it on
positive steps (Nasrullah, 2015).
It is the organization and management of tasks which enhance the effectiveness in activities
of the specific effort. The major purpose of time management is to enable an individual to
perform more activities and completee the work in as minimum time as possible. The main
components of time management include planning, scheduling, and organizing.
Importance of time management: It is an important part of an individual’s personal and
professional life. With time management, an individual learns to manage their time
efficiently. If an individual keeps waiting for extra time they will never be able to meet
success. Effective planning includes setting up of goals, improving the best approach to
achieve the specific goal, prioritize them and building a programme that brings them closer to
the goal that an individual has set. When an individual sets their goal they get direction. This
provides motivation to people to achieve their goals before the deadline. When an
organization sets goals for their employees, they learn how to avoid wastage of time and
manage with the other distraction objects. In the corporate world, everybody is assigned a
unique task whose whole responsibility is on their shoulder only. If work is completed
according to priority, like the most important work is done first and the remaining is done
after. Avoid working on multiple tasks at the same time, it will only create issues. Divide the
work into four quadrants: Essential and crucial (Emergencies) Essential but not crucial
(Anticipation, Preparation, and Perfection).Not essential but crucial (Disruptions and
Demanding work.) and, Not essential and not crucial (Time Dropouts)
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The employee should focus on their goals and follow their planner. Maintain the order of
work from start to finish.
According to the author “If an individual aims at nothing, they will hit every time”. Highly
agree with the set goals and objective because it gives long-time visualization and short time
inspiration. It emphasizes the knowledge, which helps to organize time and resources so that
an individual can decide their path accordingly. This will provide direction to the mind which
now only focuses on the target rather than waste their time on aimless activities. The goals
also continuously evaluate and measure the progress because they permanently have an
endpoint to compare with the current performance. It also sets an outline at the endpoint
which is helpful to stay away from distraction and keeps highly focused towards the goal.
This method occurs habitually (Ademi, 2016). For example: Assume that the CEO of the
organization will visit tomorrow, automatically all employees come in formal dress they
manage their work properly because here the goal is set and they work according to that.
Setting up goals and objectives also provides motivation to the individual, it gives them
something to focus on and provide perfection in their efforts. It is a method which enhances
their energy in a positive direction. Disagree with the Delegation of responsibilities because
sometimes the emergencies or crises may happen at that time the entire responsibility on the
single man shoulder. Sometimes when people work in a team they assume that if something
goes wrong they will continue and later they can blame their team leader. This is not fair
since everybody has equal responsibilities towards their organization if they work in a team
or individually. At the time when there is a deadline, others should also help them instead of
distancing themselves thinking that this is not their responsibility. By being a part of the
organization every employee must develop a habit to help each other, but not always only
when they face a hard time. It is the responsibility of every employee to increase the
development rate of their organization in an efficient manner (Rombe, 2016).
Inspect the progress at particular intervals of time. Sometimes there is a need for modification
and some changes are required in the plan. The different plan needs a different time slot, for
this they can use various mobile apps to keep the record of details with notifications as well.
The goal is set but the path may be different. An individual learns to follow the easiest path
which has the least resistance to reach the endpoint. Individuals must organize their work in a
good manner by which they can easily fetch their old task. Time can also be managed by a
simpler method which is experience; with the help of past experience an individual can make
things easier. They learn from their past mistakes and learn how they should never be
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repeated in their future tasks. It saves time and energy which is spent on correcting them.
When people work in corporate world or any other profession which requires their significant
amount of time they sometimes forget to take care of themselves. They face several medical
issues due to lack of sleep and an unbalanced diet. This should not be allowed to happen and
they must learn to balance their work as well as personal time (Kabir, 2017).
Time management is a very significant skill to be cultured and to be learned in order to have
a better lifestyle in their personal life and have a well-organized life in their career. If an
individual follows all the steps of time management, he or she will never suffer any kind of
stress in their work. They always complete their work within the deadline with better quality.
They maintain the balance between their personal and professional life as well. The purpose
of time management is to intensification in the amount of desire and happiness in their
experience (Thomack, 2012).
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References
 Ademi N.,2016. Managerial Time Management, Journal of Accounting & Marketing
 Kabir,S,M,S.,2017. Stress and Time Management,Researchgate
 Nasrullah,S, and Khan,M,S.,2015. The Impact of Time Management on the Students’
Academic Achievements, Journal of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Vol.11
 Rombe,M,L,C.,2016. Effective Time and Self Management, Environment and
Productivity in an OrganizationScience Journal of Business and Management
 Thomack,B, 2012. Time Management for Today’s Workplace Demands,Workplace
health and safety, Vol. 60, No. 5.
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