What is time management?

This blog attempts to examine what time management is. It explains the concepts of time and management and attempts to define time management.

Time

 Wikipedia defined time as follows:

• The continuing sequence of events occurring in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future, and

• A measure of the durations, and

• Frequencies of events and the intervals between them.

Time has long been a major subject of study in religion, philosophy, and science, but defining it in a manner applicable to all fields without circularity has consistently eluded scholars. Nevertheless, diverse fields such as business, industries , sports, sciences, music, dance, and the live theater all incorporate some notion of time into their respective measuring systems.  Some simple, relatively uncontroversial definitions of time include “time is what clocks measure” and “time is what keeps everything from happening at once”.

Time is recorded in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades and so on.

Management

Management is a universal phenomenon. It is a very popular and widely used term. All organizations – business, political, cultural or social are involved in management because it is the management which helps and directs the various efforts towards a definite purpose.  Management has been defined as a process, art, activity, science, group and profession.

According to Harold Koontz, “Management is an art of getting things done through and with the people in formally organized groups. It is an art of creating an environment in which people can perform and individuals and can co-operate towards attainment of group goals”.

According to F.W. Taylor, “Management is an art of knowing what to do, when to do and see that it is done in the best and cheapest way”.

However, management involves:

• The process of dealing with or controlling things or people,

• The responsibility for and control of things, events, people and company to achieve some predetermined goals.

• The creation of conditions and situations that are conducive for maximizing efforts so that people can perform their tasks efficiently and effectively,

• Ensuring the availability of factors of production, raw materials, determination of wages and salaries and formulation of rules and regulations.

Therefore, good management includes both being effective and efficient. Being effective means doing the appropriate task and being efficient means doing the task correctly, at least possible cost with minimum wastage of resources.

Time management

Generally, time management refers to the development of processes and tools that increase efficiency and productivity.

Wikipedia defined Time management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.

Therefore, time management is a set of principles, practices, skills, tools and systems that help you use your time to accomplish what you want. In business, time management has morphed into everything from methodologies such as Enterprise Resource Planning through consultant services such as Professional Organizers. When we think of time management, however, we tend to think of personal time management, loosely defined as managing our time to waste less time on doing the things we have to do so we have more time to do the things we want to do.

Therefore, time management is often thought of or presented as a set of time management skills; the theory is that once we master the time management skills, we’ll be more organized, efficient, and happier. Personal time management skills include: planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing.

Developing time management skills is a journey that requires a lot of practices and guide along the way. Time management starts with the commitment to change. Time management is easy as long as you commit to action. One goal is to help yourself become aware of how you use your time as one resource in organizing, prioritizing, and succeeding in your endeavors in the context of competing activities of friends, work, family, etc.

—————

Presented below is a list of other articles on time management in this website that might be of interest to you.

1. Time management strategies
2. Importance of time management

As you read them drop a comment because your feedback is very important to us. It will help us to improve. Regards…