Time management and motivation

The two are yet another example of all the partnerships that exist in our world i.e. ying and yang, right and wrong, positive and negative etc. They exist as separate meanings, two totally different things and yet you need one to achieve the other. Without good time management you fall behind, you don’t get things done and in turn everything piles up and you lose your motivation to do anything as you just don’t know where to begin. From the other perspective without motivation in the first place you don’t do anything, just find distractions and reasons not to do what needs doing and therefore completely messing up your time management and you end up having to do everything last minute.... not good.
So what causes us to have bad time management and lack of motivation? Well let’s start with time management, well were back to the opposites again. This time it’s between over-commitment and procrastination. Now to most people you might think over-committing would be a good thing, that they’re actually a workaholic. To be honest that should be everyone’s attitude towards their work but everyone should know their limits. Over-committing is dangerous because you find yourself wanting so much you often find taking on too much that you can handle and so in-turn don’t know where to start or where to finish for that matter. So you end up missing those deadlines and not getting what needed to be done, done. Problem is if you’re one of these people is that you like having so much to do, you like a full list and in all honestly you like to moan about how much you’ve got to do. So your answer here to avoid the problem of over-committing is to realise your limits, know how much you can handle at once and not take on more work until you’ve finished that of which you already have to do.

Now on the other end of the scale we have procrastination, which in simple terms is a person who says to themselves our do it tomorrow. You can start with having something so miner as the shopping to do and you say to yourself ‘you know what we’ll just have take-out tonight I’ll do it tomorrow’. Then tomorrow comes and you get new tasks whether it be from work or you got to take the kids to football practice etc etc. This is where everything begins to pile up, not in an over-committing context however as these things are stacking up when you don’t want them compared to someone who is over-committing and wants them to pile up. I have to admit that I’m a person who suffers from procrastination as I dawdle with things, I say to myself ‘I’ll just have hour playing Left 4 dead....oooooh another hour won’t hurt......four hours later......is that the time, well I’ll do it tomorrow and I’ll get some sleep now’. At times it can seem like an endless cycle, there are just so many things in today’s modern world that can distract you from the task at hand. The internet with endless distractions, Facebook is my worst enemy in this case. You’ve got mobile phones, TV’s, Games consoles, food and drink, cigarettes, people...the list is endless. Compared to days back in history when you were ploughing fields with oxen and trawl in hand, the only distraction I can think of there was the other workers but they’d be all working to, until the job was done. Now obviously you can never really get rid of all distractions in a modern world but you can at least set up yourself a more work suited environment for yourself, one which is motivational, organised and distraction free. This should help you face the tasks at hand better.

To deal with the more dawdle sides of things reward systems work really well, you see it work well with kids when their being taught good from bad so why should the same principle not work with us older folk. Me for example a reward system id have would be get one project finished then get a set time to play on my Xbox 360. The only problem we face as more mature people is that we have control over what belongs to us so whether or not we deserve it we have it, where as with the children the adults have authority over them and their belongings so they must obey. So for me this is where I get other sufferers of procrastination, i.e. my friend Priya involved. The idea is we give each other our luxury/distracting items to keep. Then when we finished a piece of work we go to each other for one of items back as a reward. Once done with it we return it so to carry on with the next piece of work. It works rather well as long as you’re lenient with each other. However everyone’s different so whatever you like doing the most which tends to be your distractions use that as your reward whether it’s as big as shopping for yourself or as little as having a smoke.

One other to talk about which contributes to bad time management is underestimating your tasks , in other words thinking it will only take two hours to do when in reality it will take twelve hours. So then what happens is you waste that much needed time doing what you’d rather do until u leave it to those last two hours before its to be done and then u realise, so intern u rush it in an effort to catch up and get it finish and in the end its either not finished or it’s really rubbish. Only a lucky few can pull it off in such a small time scale, problem is everyone thinks their one of those lucky few. The best way to tackle this problem is to start the task as soon as you get it, list all the elements of it that you need to do to cover it then plan out what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. This way you’re at least being more realistic and you get the task done without stress, to good quality and on time. 

So in summary to keep a good time management scheme you want:

• To be realistic. Know your limits of how much you can do at any one time and know that just because you think you can get it done in two hours doesn’t mean it will get done in two hours.

• Plan. Know what needs to be to complete the task and schedule yourself so you know what you’re doing at what times in order to get it done on time. 

• Reminders are always good whether it is lists, sticky notes, a diary etc anything that reminds you of what is still to be done and how much time you’ve got left to do it.

• Distractions. Get rid of them as best you can create a work heaven for yourself where you can concentrate on what you’re doing.

• Rewards are good motivators as well as good time keeps as they inspire you to go on and carry on, they give you a sense of satisfaction that what you are doing is good.

• Also getting other people around to help out is good, not so much with the work load but more as inspiration to push you on and you can do the same, it’s more effective in the workplace as you’ll find yourself working with people in similar situations as you so why not help each other out.

Now to some people this may seem like a lot, it’s a bit like breaking an addiction really, hard at first and so tempting to give but when you get to the end it’s so easy and you really do reap the benefits, the main one being that your motivations stays high and intern you keep going and you stay on top of your time management. 

To me it’s finding the motivation in the first place which is the hardest thing to do. For everyone its different, we’re all motivated by different things which we use to help us through things but they don’t always work, me for example I’m motivated by music and my friends however my friends can’t always be around me and listening to the same music over and over again can get tiresome so you find yourself stuck at times. To conquer de-motivation you have to find the cause of it as though motivations and time management are paired it’s not always due to bad time management that we become de-motivated. When it comes to the human body there is two places that de-motivation arrive from, the brain and the heart. 

The brain is the more typical cause of de-motivation more to do with the bad time management as well as stuff like weight issues, money problems, work and other things to do with set goals in your life that you don’t feel your achieving with. These problems then make you feel low and de-motivated but are more easily fixed and once corrected re-motivate you and get you going again.

The heart on the other hand is totally different, the more serious and personal problems derive from the heart such as loss of a loved one, loss of a pet, loss of a friend, a break up etc everything that effects us more personally and emotionally. These problems are more dangerous than the ones the brain creates as they can lead to severe depression which obviously leads to no motivation. The thing that makes them real motivation breakers is that you can’t fix most of them so you have to start from scratch and find such a good source of new motivation to pull you out of the slump before they ruin you completely, you can lose a lot to these de-motivators, however no ones the same so it takes everyone different things and different amounts of time to re-motivate them and get them back on track. 

Now the problem you face once you are de-motivated is you don’t know where to start with anything even with looking for new motivation you just do something until you’re bored of it from watching TV, going shopping, eating, sleeping etc and this is where you effect your time management, where you procrastinate, looking for something more interesting and that might inspire you. Another example for me was the other day I went and saw Avatar, absolutely sublime film in my eyes and it inspired/motivated me to work. So it shows that when you find something that interests you, you can then use it productively to influence you to work. You’ve got to realise I think when you’re looking for new motivation that if it isn’t motivating you within the first thirty minutes then move on to something else instead of wasting your time and falling more behind. Whenever you’re struggling for motivation I find it best to look for something to do with your three I’s....INSPIRED....INTERESTS......INFLUENCE. All three of them are again different for everyone, which is what makes it impossible I guess to teach motivation but at the same times they make us unique. They are what give us all our different ideas. You should always use them to your advantage where best you can.

So in summary then, bad motivation equals bad time management, same rules apply the other way round. To deal with both find the cause of the problem and deal with as quickly as possible don’t let it fester it only gets worse otherwise. Good time management consists of good organisation and time planning and a reward to spire you on. Good motivation comes from having loads of things that INSPIRE, INTEREST and INFLUENCES you, and both are good when the other is good, but always remember everyone’s different so just because it works for you don’t mean it will for someone else.