Time is an abstract concept that gets perceived differently by different living beings.
According to Reas (2014), it, in fact, is possible to determine how different species perceive
time-based on their metabolism and body mass. Time is infinite, yet scares, thus, prudent use of
the resource is necessary (Styhre, 2019). Humans are constrained to living a finite number of
years and must fit their aspirations, goals, and vision to leave behind legacies upon their death. In
the current highly globalized and business-oriented society, time is of the essence as the business
leaders want to leave the greatest impact they can and accumulate wealth for shareholders.
Therefore, deadlines are common for almost all tasks. It, therefore, is imperative that individuals
develop excellent time management skills to succeed not just as individuals but also as team
players at the organizational level.
Time management is an issue that has existed in human culture for a long time and the
concept can be traced to as far back as ancient Greece. It helps individuals improve their quality
of life by eradicating stressors and allowing the accomplishment of tasks in time allowing
individuals to have more free time and hence have an all-rounded life (Adasi et al, 2020).
Importantly, proper time management helps families to spend quality time and prosper as the
members have extra time together.
There are several skills that one ought to have to be considered effective in time
management. The first skill that one must possess is excellent organizational skills.
Organizational skills help an individual to maintain a clear path on what ought to get done and
when (Dmcgrath@hr.com, 2020). The ability to prioritize is another important skill. It helps an
individual to prioritize tasks, depending on their importance and urgency and one is not just able
to deliver but do it satisfactorily. Prioritization goes hand in hand with the ability to set goals.
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This is because after determining the order of tasks, one needs to determine when each of the
tasks needs to get accomplished and allocate time for relaxation. A good time manager is also
good at communicating their vision to their teams, organization, and clients (Dmcgrath@hr.com,
2020). This helps create realistic expectations and having the most qualified people working on
projects that fit their expertise, thus, helping get reasonable deadlines and avoid stress.
Time management is useful not just to people in the workforce but also to individuals in
schools. This is because, by properly managing tome, individuals can avoid work overload which
could lead to stress (Gregg, 2018). Stress is undesirable because it psychologically disrupts an
individual reducing their productivity and could lead to the development of conditions such as
hypertension, chronic back pain, headaches, or worse, depression. It, therefore, is imperative that
one develops a time management tool to avoid these undesirable conditions.
Students, especially college students tend to have a huge workload. For instance, a
student taking five courses could have up to 10 assignments in one week, exercises as well as
reading assignments (Adasi et al., 2020). If a student assumes that they will complete such work
over the weekend, it could become impossible to meet some or, in some instances all the
deadlines leading to a drop in grades. However, by properly managing time, such a student
would avoid the problem by designing a timetable and making sure they full it to the letter.
College students are generally active and tend to remain physically active, have social
relations and at the same time maintain a good GPA. All these aspects are important in helping
students to become all-rounded and desirable in the job market (Lokko, 2011). However, this is a
hard achievement to make because a student’s time is limited and deadlines must be met. As
such, a schedule that determines what a student should do, when, and where is important as it
would help them achieve this seemingly unachievable goal.
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Time management skills are very important because they help to maintain happy and
satisfied customers. More often than not, customers issue a deadline for organizational leadership
because they have deadlines to meet too. Failing to deliver on such deadlines could mean losses
to the client making them not just dissatisfied but also very unhappy (Gregg, 2018). A perfect
example of such a scenario is a trucker given a job to transport building equipment to a site in a
remote area. Such a trucker missing the deadline by a day could mean hundreds of man-hour in
losses because the construction workers must be paid for showing up and the equipment, if
leased per hour must also be paid for, therefore, it would be undesirable to miss such a deadline.
It would, therefore, be imperative for the trucker to manage their time appropriately not to miss
the deadline.
Some businesses operate in a very competitive space and being the first to produce an
item means getting not just revenues from the said sales but also copyrights to such products. In
such a case, the employees must endeavor to produce such an item or project long before their
competitor, otherwise, risk producing an absolute product wasting their employers’ resources
and failing to deliver (Gregg, 2018). In some instances, failing in some of this project could
lender the said company obsolete.
Time management comes very hard in such institutions as it allows them to remain
relevant. A perfect example of a company in such an industry is Apple Inc. The company s
executives have project managers explain the progress of their teams in their respective
developments every Wednesday (Kogon, Blakemore & Wood, 2015). Such managers, endeavor
to satisfy the company’s management and thus needs their teams to be time conscious; this has
helped Apple Inc. to grow into the world’s largest company by capitalization which underscores
the benefit of great time management.
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In the modern competitive business environment, reputation can easily be broken by a
few bad reviews online. Reputation, though as venerable, is equivalent to a currency in the
market place (Christensen, Gornitzka & Ramirez, 2019). According to Christensen, Gornitzka &
Ramirez (2019), One’s reliability and reputation help one to get new business and keep the old
customers keep because of the established reliability. Failing one customer could lead to losing
more than a few current customers as well as lose potential business in the future. Therefore, a
business must make sure that the projects are perfectly managed so that every customer, no
matter how small gets the service they desire and within time (Christensen, Gornitzka &
Ramirez, 2019). Making such delivery calls for the organization to have a culture where time
management is strictly observed and employees are trained on being time conscience and great
tome managers.
Time though an abstract concept and an infinite resource, ought to be viewed as a scarce
resource due to the limited nature of human life and inherent restrictions to doing things (Styhre,
2019). Perfect time management is very important not just to students but also to the
organization. At a personal level, it helps one to cope with huge workloads ad avoid stress. At a
corporate level, time management help organizations to earn and retain competitive advantages
in earning and helping them retain customers. Indeed, excellent time management skills are
necessary for success, not just at individual levels but also at the organizational level.
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References
Styhre, A. (2019). What’s so funny about sleazy greed and managerial malfeasance?.
International Journal of Organizational Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-12-2017-
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Adasi, G. S., Amponsah, K. D., Mohammed, S. M., Yeboah, R., & Mintah, P. C. (2020). Gender
Differences in Stressors and Coping Strategies among Teacher Education Students at
University of Ghana. Journal of Education and Learning, 9(2), 123-133.
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1248297
Gregg, M. (2018). Counterproductive: Time management in the knowledge economy. Duke
University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/68706
Lokko, C. N. (2011). Wrestling for our humanity: An examination of college degree choice
processes used by freshmen and sophomores at West Virginia University.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/3544/
Kogon, K., Blakemore, S., & Wood, J. (2015). Project Management for the Unofficial Project
Manager: A FranklinCovey Title. BenBella Books, Inc..
Christensen, T., Gornitzka, Å., & Ramirez, F. O. (2019). Reputation management, social
embeddedness, and rationalization of universities. In Universities as agencies (pp. 3-39).
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92713-8_1
Reas, E. (2014, July 1). Small Animals Live in a Slow-Motion World.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/small-animals-live-in-a-slow-motion-world/
Dmcgrath@hr.com. (2020, October 23). Time Management from Ancient Greece.
https://www.hr.com/en/app/blog/2009/11/time-management-from-ancient-
greece_g2jbzxk5.html.