Time Management is an overarching skill not limited to tasks and projects but to the whole of life. Why is time management so important? It is because it is the most expensive commodity on earth aside air.
For most things in life you can get standard, medium and premium. But the only price for time is PREMIUM.
Time is at a premium. It is always utilised at the highest cost. Most importantly you can’t buy it. Therefore, we must always redeem it, efficiently utilise it and invest it towards future realisation of our dreams.
Why is time so expensive? It is because it is borrowed. You have heard the term “borrowed time”, mostly used for the terminally ill, but in reality, we are all living on “borrowed time”. We are never and can never be in control of it. But because it is borrowed, we can invest it for interest and use it wisely and purposefully.
Investing your time today in what matters means you can receive or recoup benefits in future. This means you can use your future time efficiently and even take out some of it to just be in the moments you have earned from utilising it effectively up-front.
To effectively utilise time requires PLANNING. However, most people plan for things that don’t matter or which carry no PASSION or PURPOSE within it for them. This is wasted time. To utilise time to its best, we must use it for pursuit of PURPOSE. This is what yields interests in life.
The first step towards effective utilisation of time is the discovery of passion and purpose. But most of us run around first, then burnout or get dissatisfied with life, before we wake up to the reality of wasted time.
In project management, you devise a project plan with an end date and map out timelines which include milestones. Your life should be your PROJECT. You have an end date but this is unknown to you. But you can still plan your life timelines and put in milestone dates. Then you begin each day to invest towards those milestones.
So say you haven’t done any of the above, you let time slip by with no drive to achieve purpose or pursue passion. All hope is not lost, you even now must courageously device your life plan and begin your life project management cycle with shorter timescales and well thought out milestones. You leverage the knowledge and experiences gained from the wasted time to now make the most of future time you have left.
So time is borrowed and you are not in control. This can mean hopelessness for some, which leads to “action paralysis” i.e., they give up and say “what’s the point I am past it now”. However, it is never too late to try to be what you would have been. Mindset and attitude is key. Having a positive life outlook and hope, means you can find enthusiasm to start developing your life plan.
Gain time management insight, knowledge and skills today. The first place to start is through introspection, ask yourself what fuels my PASSION? What is my PURPOSE?
Remember each day is pregnant with possibilities for truly living and a sure death, by 12pm each day you experience the death of a day and the dawning of a new one. When people die, we say “time is up”, the truth is, time is always up every day and little by little it depletes until it’s all gone.
Build into each day the most efficient use that creates, happiness, achieves purpose, generates love and meaning, this is the key to a fulfilled life of Success to Significance and legacy.
Key thing is if you leave a Legacy, time may be up for your physical body but will never be up for the essence of you as it will carry on through your legacy.
Keep managing time wisely
Patience Ogunbona