Subscribe to RSS
Subscribe by email
It’s hard to find anything more elusive than time. There are only a few things in life as precious as time. I often find it unfair that we’re allotted only 24 hours a day. It is the fact that I have a hard time coping with, constantly wishing to add if not another 24 then at least, 12 more hours to every passing day.
It’s because of the Time we “can’t step the same river twice”. We can’t bring back the time, nor can we move it forward. We can’t unsend the email we sent a few seconds ago written in anger or frustration, and now wishing we weren’t so hasty with it. We can’t stop the time to meet the deadline, nor can we make it go faster to find out the results of the competition and whether or not we were selected.
One thing we can do with time is manage it. It’s not the easiest task in the world, and those who did master it deserve a medal of honour or a lifetime achievement award. For the rest of us, mortals, I’ve decided to host another group writing project and invite all of you, time management gurus, to participate.
If I confused you with the label “guru”, don’t be. To see whether or not you qualify for this project, complete the following test questions:
- Are you juggling a busy family life and career?
- Are you working full time and still manage to blog?
- Do you have your hands full with multiple projects but succeed in keeping all of them under a reasonable control?
- Can you still find time for your favourite hobby despite the loads of work and tons of daily responsibilities?
If you answered YES to at least one of the questions above, you’ve successfully passed the test, deserve to be called a guru and now required to share your Time Management tips with the rest of us.
There are many books and articles written on this topic, but I find most of them lacking in the fields of reality and practicality. What I’d like to achieve with this group writing project is getting the real-life solutions to Time Management by real people: working parents, busy freelancers, swamped bloggers. Even if you don’t consider yourself as a very organized person, you must have at least one tip to share with others, the most essential time management trick that works for you.
The rules for this group writing project are very simple:
- Write a post on your blog and share with us how you manage to sustain the sanity in your super busy life, or what sometimes works for keeping your marbles together, in other words - your Time Management advice or tips.
- Contact me with your name, email and a permalink to your post. If you don’t have your own blog, you can always write a guest post on my blog, or simply send me your thoughts by contacting me in person.
- Once I collect the links from all participants and publish them on my blog, you can write another post and link to either all or your favourite tips suggested by other bloggers.
The deadline is Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
I will send you a confirmation email once I get your entry and will publish the complete list with links to all your posts on Saturday, September 29th, 2007.
Those who’ve participated in my previous Group Writing Project - Source of Inspiration, remember how successful it was, reaching the Digg’s front page, was bookmarked on del.icio.us by hundreds of people. Every participant got his/her share of big traffic waves. So, hurry up and be sure to carve a small time frame and participate in this group project.
I’ll be posting my own Time Management Tips soon, will tell you how I juggle with a full-time job, family (my 30-months-old daughter starts a pre-school this week), my Fall lectures once a week (including checking and marking students work), freelancing in evenings and blogging in-between. I look forward to getting help from all of you to manage that elusive precious Time.
I can’t wait to see the entries in this one. I suck at time management. I have several ideas still on paper because I am horrible at balancing time. Hopefully someone will be able to cure me.
1
Count me in. Now I just need to find the time to do it. :)
2
Joey, I do hope you’ll participate nevertheless. There must be at least something that works for you, at least sometimes. I’m struggling with time myself, that’s why I’m holding this project. But I do have a tip or two that works for me, if I stick to it :-)
haha, Ronald - that’s a good one. You’ve got three weeks. I will personally chase you down until you find the time to write for this project :-)
3
This is going to be very useful. I know only one person in the world who has enough time to do whatever she wants (and that is not me). You can count me in.
4
Who is that person, Simonne? Can you ask her to pitch in? :-) Look forward to reading your tips!
5
That’s a good friend of mine who decided to do nothing for the rest of her life. She’s 39 years old and she has no obligations.
6
It’s like you read my mind — I’m actually in the process of organizing a weekly schedule for all my blogging and photography activities. Once I get it ironed out, I’ll write up an article aimed at my audience. Your timing is perfect because I was planning on writing about this anyways.
7
kudos to your friend with no obligations, Simonne. No obligations = no need in time management :-)
Brian, didn’t you know about my psychic powers? ;-) Look forward to your take on time and organizational skills. I certainly have a thing or two to learn from you in how you’re structuring your day and have time for everything - full time work, family, photography and blogging.
8
Hi. Here’s my prescription for time management.
9
Hi Em Dy. Thanks a lot for your excellent entry!
10
Hi again. This is a great project. I just posted more lessons on time management.
11
Hi Em Dy. Thank you so much for another great contribution to the project. You rock!
12
This is a fabulous project! I’ve contributed in my blog here!
I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s tips!
13
Natalie, thanks for accepting the challenge and successfully passing the Time management guru test :-)
14
I’m expecting to see so much useful information being submitted that I’ll have to rearrange all my daily plans to be able to read it all.
Nice one and count me in.
15
I think I’m going to give this a go - I didn’t realize how much of a Guru I am, but gee we are all super heros aren’t we?
16
I am in! Great idea for a theme, I am looking forward to reading other’s posts to get some ideas.
17
Count me in Vivien. If I can’t find the time, I’ll make the time! ;)
18
Thanks everyone, who already sent me their submissions. I too can’t wait to publish that final list and read all your tips.
Jen, thanks for finding the time to share with your time management strategies. You’re one busy lady, and I’d love to find out how do you manage to do it all.
19
Uh-oh. Another one to keep me busy. Will join this one if only to give inspiration to others:)
20
please do, ajay :-)
21
Hi Vivien, thanks for hosting this great writing project. I sent you an email. Here’s a quick link to my post:
http://ideasnpink.i.ph/blogs/i.....ment-tips/
22
Whew! I got mine posted just in the nick of time! Thanks for hosting this, Vivien! I’m looking forward to reading all the inspiring entries.
23
Years ago, I used to keep lists. One for Friday thru Sunday, and the second for Monday thru Thursday. I was actually rather compulsive, to the point of letting things pile up so I’d have enough items for a decent list. This was back more years ago than I care to remember, when I was in college.
A funny thing now, however, is that since most of the items I’d put on a list involve paying clients—either getting them or performing work for which they’ve contracted with me—it’s not so hard to remember the things I need “to do”.
24
Stephen, I’m pretty much the same, I usually keep all the to do things in my head. I organize my email and computer folders by clients so I know who is expecting what from me :-)
25
I’ve wrote a little about subject here http://share-experiences.com/b.....trackback/
You can use them if you wish.
26