Time Management Tips!

At New Beginnings, time management contributes to resident success in the program. Staff, also, works to maintain strong time management skills in an effort to further the mission of our ministry every day. Sometimes trying to accomplish multiple tasks in one day leads us to want to throw our hands up in the air and yell, “This is too much!” We can rest assured that everything will get done one day at a time, but in the meantime, here are some tips on time management. One of our former Resident Support Interns, Deanna Mose, compiled some important tips on how to manage time effectively. Thanks Deanna!

​Managing time is something that does not come naturally to us. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done. Time management skills, however, can be learned and improved. Here are some tips for how to manage time well: 

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​Set goals for yourself. It is essential to know what you would like to accomplish so that you can plan your time accordingly. Some have found that keeping a goal journal, (writing down progress made toward goals over the past week) is helpful in staying on target. 

• Understand the difference between urgency and importance. Some tasks may be urgent in the sense that they demand immediate attention, but not matter toward reaching one’s goals. Other tasks may be important to accomplish, but not need to be done immediately. In order to prioritize tasks, do tasks that are both urgent and important, then ones that are important but not urgent, then ones that are urgent but not important if they still need to be done. Steer clear of distractions that are neither urgent nor important. 

​Keep a to-do list. By writing down a list of what needs to get done, it is easier to remember everything that needs to be accomplished and to not leave something important out. Sort the tasks in your to-do list by how high of a priority they are. 

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• Don’t multitask. It may feel like you are accomplishing a lot when you are doing multiple tasks at once, but in reality it takes 20-40% more time when multitasking than when doing each thing sequentially. Focus on one task at a time, and minimize distractions, like Internet or phone use, in order to make the best use of your time. 

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Overcome Procrastination.                      Schedule.                              Avoid Perfectionism.

• Overcome procrastination. One of the greatest pitfalls to having good time management is the tendency to procrastinate. One way to get past procrastination is to tell yourself that you will spend only a short amount of time, such as perhaps ten minutes, working on that pesky project. Once you have started, it can be easier to continue working on it afterwards. Another way to deal with procrastination is to break larger projects up into smaller steps and accomplishing those steps one at a time, so that working on the project does not seem so daunting. 

• Schedule. Set apart the times of the day when you work best for work on your most important tasks. Set aside a separate time for checking email and/or social media instead of doing it constantly throughout the day, because switching between tasks wastes time and makes it harder to be productive. 

• Avoid perfectionism. Rather than constantly refining and refining work that is already plenty good enough to get the job done, know which tasks are already as good as they need to be, in order so you can spend your time and energy on the ones that need that extra effort. 

​This blog post was written by our former Resident Support Staff Intern, Deanna Mose. Deanna currently attends Wisconsin Lutheran College. She helped New Beginnings with a variety of projects including light office work, assisting with our Change for Life fundraiser, interacting with residents, doing research on generational poverty, and writing blog articles. 
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