# Time management

## How to use

Time management is an essential skill that helps you keep your work under control, increase productivity and reduce stress. Poor time management can lead to frustration, lack of motivation and poor self-esteem, and it can even undermine health and wellbeing. Therefore, for people working in health and social care – who often care for highly vulnerable people – good time management is crucial, to help ensure safety for you, those you manage and the service users.

Personal awareness and goal awareness are both key to effective time management. You need to know both what your important work tasks are and what personal goals you hold. You then need to be able to recognise your strengths and weaknesses and to find a way to manage yourself and your time better with this knowledge.

For many people, the first step in time management is to write a ‘To Do’ list; however, opinion varies about how effective this actually is (Rowan, 2011). It doesn't help you see what the important tasks are, or how you go about tackling your list, or help you to manage yourself better. A simple ‘To Do’ list doesn't give any indication of how long each task will take and, crucially, it doesn't get over the stumbling blocks you may put in your own path – such as procrastination! And if you fail to complete everything on your ‘To Do’ list, might that just demotivate you further?

Some people therefore suggest it is also useful to have a ‘Don't Do’ list (McCrostie, 2010). You may want to include things like ‘Don't check email every hour’, ‘Don't skip a lunch break’ or ‘Don't schedule an important meeting last thing on Friday’. You may also like to keep a ‘Did Do’ list at the end of the day, to celebrate what you have achieved!

Clearly, time management is about more than writing a list of tasks, so we have put together the tool below to help you develop your goal awareness and personal awareness and to manage your approach to time better.

#### References

McCrostie, B. (2010) Two Alternatives to the To-Do List [Online], http:// bevmccrostie.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/two-alternatives-to-the-to-dolist (Accessed 17 September 2012).

Rowan, A. (2011) Kill Your To-Do List [Online], http://freelancefolder. com/kill-your-to-do-list (Accessed 17 September 2012).

Tip Good time management also has a positive long-term impact. For example, you may want to start a fresh project, begin a training course, or take up a new hobby, but you never have the time. Start by managing your time more effectively on a daily basis and you will carve out time you thought you never had.