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Time is easily becoming one of the scarcest resources on the planet just because it’s
so misused. There’s a saying that goes “The time that you enjoy wasting is never wasted,”
but what about the time that you’re not enjoying wasting, or worse, the time that
someone else is wasting for you? By taking control of your personal time, you essentially
take control of your destiny. Do this by guarding your time well, delegating it carefully, and
managing others’ expectations of you.
One way of managing your time is to say “no” very early on to projects and tasks that you
don’t want to do. This will save you a lot of emotional stress, not to mention avoiding
the risk of a potentially sloppy or late finished product.
Finding the balance between structured work and new pursuits can be tricky, but find it
by limiting your time between the two, blocking off your calendar so that no one schedules
over either, and watching yourself.
Rethink the way you deal with deadlines. Try saying “soon” instead of “tomorrow.”
By giving yourself and your client a bit more slack, you’re also allowing yourself enough
flexibility to deal with any unforeseen problems while meeting the expectations you yourself
set. Also try turning in smaller and more frequent updates instead of a completed progress.
This will allow you to move forward consistently without being locked into a high-pressure
time frame.
Lastly, put away the cape and tights. Taking one for the team is fine once in a while,
but doing it often will just enable your officemates to turn in late and bad work because they
know that you’re always around to pick up after them. Use firm deadlines and constant
follow-ups to ensure that you’re all on the same page, at the same time.
We want to hear from you… Does someone else have control of your clock?
Are you putting out everyone’s fires? How did you learn to respect your own time?
Visit us at Upskilled and share!