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Time Management

Self Management

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To manage your time is to manage yourself. You already have a lifetime of expertise in this. Reading will not teach you to do what you already do so well, but it may provide concepts that help you improve your already brilliant performance.

Time Management Tips from Students



Time is a
cultural construct by which we organise our lives. Time and space are two basic constructs with which we mentally organise reality. But we can see space in a way that we cannot see time. Everything we see is organised in space: Or, more accurately, space is the mental way we organise everything we see. Although time cannot be seen, we relate it to things we can see, like the movement of the sun in the sky, day and night and the changing seasons.

We mentally organise space with the concepts of geometry (earth measurement). We use the same kind of constructs to organise and measure time. Our culture thinks of time as a straight line (a geometrical concept) with a zero point now. We imagine the line stretching ahead of us with plus signs and behind us with minus signs.

Calendars are the main way that cultures organise time. In our culture the calendars are drawn on paper or computers.

Diaries are a way for individuals to organise their time.

A diary can be used to plan what you are going to do and/or to record what you have done.

Study Diaries are constructed to organise the time we use for studying. Some people use their personal diary as a Study Diary. This has the advantage that it fits their other activities in with their studying.

Journal

A journal is a regular record of proceedings. In this sense, there is not a great deal of difference between a journal and a log.

Log Once-upon-a-time, a sailor would throw piece of wood (log) into the sea to lie in a fixed position so that the ship's speed could be calculated by the length of the line attached to the log that ran out in a given time. This speed was recorded regularly as part of the process of fixing where the ship was and deciding where it should go. The book in which this was recorded was called the log book, which was shortened to log. By the time the Starship Enterprise sailed in open television space, the space-ship's captain was recording what happened to it by dictating into the ship's electronic log

Log is now frequently used for a journal of what happens in an enterprise.

Students on a work-placement were asked to keep a critical log: "a diary which you complete daily".

Timetables are plans of time set out in the form of a table. This could be just a list, but usually the table has columns and rows.

Timetable tips from students

Personal Development Portfolio

A Personal Development Portfolio is a record you make of your achievements. It is kept in the form of a log in which you record your aims and then, later, what you achieved. This is intended to encourage you to think about your qualities, to record and demonstrate to yourself and others what those qualities are, to take responsibility for your own continual learning, and to gain new skills and self confidence.

Employees in a large retail chain are required to set targets for their own achievements and log their progress. Every year, their pay rise (if they get one) depends on achieving the targets set and demonstrating (by the log, for example) that they have achieved them.

Reflective Diary

A reflective diary is a form of the personal development portfolio which is particularly useful for students. It can have many names, critical log is a popular one, but reflective diary is the term I think describes it best.

A reflective diary looks forward, describes the present, and then reflects back on what it wrote. You start it by writing about your aims. Regularly you describe what you have done to achieve those aims. And regularly you reflect on your aims, your achievements and your failures. As you go along you adapt your aims and self-assess yourself.



Cooperation

Human beings develop in societies and the society's idea of time helps to organise the individuals as part of the society. An individual managing his or her time will manage her cooperation with others. Other words related to this are collaboration, delegation and participation.


Procrastination

Procrastinating is always leaving things to later. A procrastinator is someone who is always leaving things to later. Similar words to procrastinate are delay, defer, postpone, dawdle, stall and put off.

Procrastinate includes the idea that we make a habit of putting things off.



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Index

Calendar

Cooperation

Diary

Journal

Log

Personal Development Portfolio

Procrastinate

Timetable