Most of us use the Internet to access tips and tricks for proper time management. While others purchase self-help books available in bookshops. Even if these tips are reliable, most of them are usually universal. Hence, the tips are too general and there is no guarantee that they will work for you.
You can learn how to properly manage your time through experience. Online tips and books may add up to your knowledge on how to properly manage time. However, nothing can replace hands-on experience. Here are a few instances where you can learn how to properly manage your time through experience.
Your Parents or Guardians are Away
When parents leave their kids at home for a certain time period, they learn to be more responsible in a shorter period of time. When left at home with responsibilities like washing the dishes, cleaning the house, and doing laundry will force them to work out the chores first. It also teaches them how to prioritize work over other less important activities, such as playing outside. Only when they have accomplished the tasks assigned to them are they allowed to play.
This kind of training also encourages the kids to experiment on ways to maximize their own time.
Your kids aren’t the only one that will benefit from this kind of training. When kids become responsible enough with their own time in finishing up their chores, parents also save a lot of time. Kids can now lend their hand when it comes to doing chores at home, instead of you having to do it all.
Planning Big Events
Event Planning also gives a lot of good experience for you when it comes to managing your time well. Planning events need a lot of long term and short term plans that you can apply later on in your personal life. When planning an event, you have a lot of activities to consider and things to prepare. Therefore, you need to list down the activities that you must attend to for the day.
Having 2 commitments at the Same Day
Dividing your time to fulfill 2 commitments at the same day is a hard feat. It usually needs experience for you to masterfully do it. When you have 2 commitments a day, set up time tables and “to do” list for your activities on that day.
Having 2 commitments also teaches you to be versatile (with regards to schedule) on different situations. Sometimes you might need to give more time to appointments, so you have to create schedules that would be versatile enough to give time to Appointment A without jeopardizing Appointment B.
Entering in a Relationship
Entering into a relationship may be the best learning experience for you to properly manage your time. Relationships are all about ‘long term’ commitments. Meaning, you have to properly allocate your time within a day, in such a way that there is a time relegated to doing your usual activities and there is also a time for your significant other.
You have to adjust your time or schedule so that you will not undermine your partner or your personal life. This is not an easy task to do specially because there are a lot of variable things you have to consider when in a relationship. It makes you aware of all these variables and teaches you to learn how to compensate so you can maximize the limited time you have.
As the saying goes, it is through experience that we can learn from our mistakes and improve on them. Experience will teach you how to properly manage your time even if you won’t read a single book or a tip over the internet.