Most people believe that time is the most valuable resource to man and for the most part, this is true. We can’t pause nor rewind it, which means that once it’s gone, it is gone forever. People that fully understand this never play with their time because there’s often so much to do but little time. It’s no surprise that many people today wish there were more than 24 hours in a day.
How time is perceived and valued actually varies depending on several factors, like a person’s age or perhaps maturity, for example. An adult most likely values their time more than a child would theirs because they understand that it’s a limited resource. This is because as we get older, we take on more responsibilities, and to carry out these responsibilities, we must spend our time efficiently.
Still on efficiency, in the workplace, how much work a person is able to do within a specific time frame is often used to determine productivity. While there may be variations, it is largely believed that individuals who are able to manage their time efficiently get more work done.
Following all that we’ve said so far, time management is not just an important skill for work but for life as a whole. In fact, people who manage their time effectively are arguably some of the most successful in the world.
Why is Staying Organized a Challenge?
Staying organized and managing one’s time is easier said than done. But it doesn’t have to be. You see, most people struggle with this because they feel like they can manage their time without a working time management system. Without a system to guide us, we often have a hard time staying organized and doing the right thing at the right time. So, to answer the question, the absence of a “strict” system to follow makes it difficult for us to stay organized, manage time, and remember important things. Luckily, something as simple as a calendar could be the solution to all of that.
Uses of Calendars
Never Forget a Thing
With calendars, you may never forget anything important again. A calendar is a system of organizing days. It displays the date and day of a week, having the entire year divided into months. But calendars are used for so much more today. Depending on location, some even have all the notable celebrations/holidays in a year included in them. That way, you’re less likely to forget any important celebration in your country.
There are other ways by which we can use these simple charts to keep track of events. For example, if you have a hard time remembering the birthdays of family and friends, a custom-made calendar might be just what you need. You can simply collect all the dates of those that matter to you and have them printed onto the calendar.
Keep it by your bedside or someplace else that’s conspicuous and you may never forget a birthday again. What’s even better is that you can pretty much make them however you like. Say everyone of your family and friends’ birthdays fall under the first three months. That is, January, February, and March. Rather than having the full calendar made, you could have a three month calendar made just for you. It would have all the birthdays printed on the relevant dates, spread across the three months.
You can even get a little creative and make it into an art piece for your wall. Customize each day to fit each person’s personality or hobby. If mum enjoys baking cookies, on the calendar, have little cookies scattered around her birthday, and so on.
Set Priorities
When it comes to everyday tasks, some are more important than others. Following that logic, we’re expected to take care of the more important tasks first and this is especially true in the workplace. If your job is fast-paced with tasks continuously coming in until it is time to leave the office, you need a calendar.
With a calendar, you can easily prioritize tasks, taking them one at a time based on their importance and urgency. We say urgency because some tasks may be important but may not necessarily be urgent. On the other hand, some may be urgent but not necessarily important. Using the calendar on your computer or smartphone, you can easily label each task according to importance and urgency. It may sound simple, but this trick could significantly improve productivity.
Remind Us to Take a Break
Some people forget to take a break while at work because they enjoy every part of what they do. For some others, there’s just so much to do that they literally forget to take time out if it isn’t scheduled. Regardless of which category you fall into, breaks are necessary for us to stay productive for much longer.
A well-put-together calendar should tell you how many hours you’ve been working and when to take a break.
Organizing your Calendar
For a calendar to work, you must first take out time to plan, organize, and make it personal to you. First, you want to decide on the type of calendar to use. If it’s a work calendar, you’d most likely be making use of a mobile app. There are a ton of great calendar apps to choose from, however, the Google Calendar and iCalendar are two of the most popular ones.
Once you’ve settled on which to use, take a few minutes to run through your head all the important tasks for the next day. Add them to your calendar, allocate a time for each, and label them according to importance and urgency.
Final Thoughts
When putting together a calendar, you should be realistic; allocate enough time to work on tasks properly. This is important because you may feel pressured to wrap up a task once the allocated time is almost exhausted. Usually, working under pressure leads to shabby results. Finally, while this simple system can totally change the way we do things, a high level of discipline is still required to follow a schedule.
