Time Management and the Adult Learner
Managing Time as an Adult Learner
Time is an amazing concept. Time has been said to be worth more than gold, jewelry or even money. Many would trade valuable items in order to have more of it or even go back into it. We are given time and told to “spend” it wisely. From birth our time is filled with things to do, to learn and to accomplish. What if there was a secret to freezing time, what would it be worth? As a child earns money some choose to save or some spend quickly. Can you “spend” your time that way? It appears the older we get the more time we lose, but have we lost it or just not “managing” our time.
Between work, home and family all of us look for ways to cut corners and provide our normal 24 hour day with just a little more time. Usually we give up one of the most important items needed in our day, sleep. Sure twenty four hours in a day, you should be able to survive on four or five hours of sleep. But for how long can we keep this up; or how many days of this can we endure.
Now that we removed sleep from our day, or shortened our sleep by a few hours we can now accomplish all of those tasks. Well then we begin the process of procrastination. Procrastination is an avoidance of an action or task. My children are the perfect definition of procrastination. “Clean your room” we tell them, “I’ll do it later” they reply. Later comes, it is still not done and then they will not be able to do something they wish to do. Adults are almost just as bad. Whether it is a task from work or even enrolling in school to earn a degree, we will procrastinate in the hopes of someone will complete the task or even earn our degree for us. When that day does not come we look to our excuse of “I don’t have the time”.
How do we overcome procrastination? First be aware that you are! When jobs or goals come to mind, write them down. Making a list of those items with the date the item was noted and a possible completion or goal date. Now when the date of completion has passed
Time is an amazing concept. Time has been said to be worth more than gold, jewelry or even money. Many would trade valuable items in order to have more of it or even go back into it. We are given time and told to “spend” it wisely. From birth our time is filled with things to do, to learn and to accomplish. What if there was a secret to freezing time, what would it be worth? As a child earns money some choose to save or some spend quickly. Can you “spend” your time that way? It appears the older we get the more time we lose, but have we lost it or just not “managing” our time.
Between work, home and family all of us look for ways to cut corners and provide our normal 24 hour day with just a little more time. Usually we give up one of the most important items needed in our day, sleep. Sure twenty four hours in a day, you should be able to survive on four or five hours of sleep. But for how long can we keep this up; or how many days of this can we endure.
Now that we removed sleep from our day, or shortened our sleep by a few hours we can now accomplish all of those tasks. Well then we begin the process of procrastination. Procrastination is an avoidance of an action or task. My children are the perfect definition of procrastination. “Clean your room” we tell them, “I’ll do it later” they reply. Later comes, it is still not done and then they will not be able to do something they wish to do. Adults are almost just as bad. Whether it is a task from work or even enrolling in school to earn a degree, we will procrastinate in the hopes of someone will complete the task or even earn our degree for us. When that day does not come we look to our excuse of “I don’t have the time”.
How do we overcome procrastination? First be aware that you are! When jobs or goals come to mind, write them down. Making a list of those items with the date the item was noted and a possible completion or goal date. Now when the date of completion has passed
References: Blanchard, Ken (2005) Self Leadership and The One Minute Manager. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. Forsyth, P (2009) 100 Great Time Management Ideas. Singapore. Marshall Cavendish International Landsberger, Joes (2011) Retrieved from http://www.studygs.net Van Eerde, Wendelien (2003) Procrastination at Work and Time Management Training. The Journal of Psychology, 137(5), 421-434.