UED 102, 2nd Class, Part 4: Time Management and Organizational Skills

           Time is very important. It is mentioned in the Quran several times. Time even have its own surah which is Al-Asr.

          Even our beloved prophet, Nabi Muhammad SAW have something to say about time. Clearly time is not something that we should not take for granted. It should be as important as other things in our life such as eating and other stuffs that we like to do.

          The question is, what is time? As a noun, time is defined as the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present and the future. Time as a verb is plan, schedule or arrange of something that should happen or be done.

          In 24 hours, we may have a lot of things to do. As a student, i have a few classes to attend, assignments to complete, researches to be done, and also projects to be finished. Besides studying, I also have to maintain my social life. I should not abandon my family and friends. Including some time to eat, play and sleep, i realize that i only have 24 hours in a day. It is equivalent to 1 440 minutes or 86 400 seconds. That might sound a lot but with the activities i have to do, that amount is not enough!

          I need to manage my time. Luckily in this class, i learned about how to manage my time. Time management is the ability to use time effectively or productively especially at work. In this class, Miss Syahida shared 4 strategies that can help us sort out our daily activities. We can either use:

• Weekly Schedule
• Daily Planner
• Semester Calendar
• Academic and Personal Life

          With all of these tips, Miss Syahida also reminded us to avoid procrastination. Procrastination is the action of delaying or postponing something. As a normal human being, I did this before and it made me feel stress with the amount of works that i have to complete in a short amount of time.

          There are many reasons behind anyone who practise this action. One of it is being a perfectionist. According to our lecturer, being a perfectionist is perfectly fine but do not be conscience of your work. Laziness comes as the second reason. Most people would have the feeling of laziness as it is very common in everyone. Some would confuse about being lazy or relaxing. Therefore, in my opinion, we should complete our task first before relaxing or having the time for ourselves.

          The third reason is being rebellious. With this feeling, you may not want to do anything for no reason. This may be bad because it will affect us in the future. Furthermore, other reasons are overwhelmed and avoiding failure or success. Overwhelmed may be because of so many things to do yet so little time someone have. These kind of people are avoiding failure or even success that they might encounter in the future.

          However, there are some remedies for this feeling. We should go back to our own goal. We might forget about our goal and that made us delay our work and be all lazy about our responsibilities. We should also remind ourself with the deadlines in order to complete our tasks before the due date.

          We must prioritize the important events or things in life. As for example, if we have two assignments and one of it is due tomorrow, we should focus on completing that one first before doing the second one. The last remedy is self reward. After a long day doing your work or after tirelessly doing a successful project, we should treat ourself with something that we like.

          Being organise may advantage one in many ways. It may reduce our stress as the responsibilities are all completed before the deadline. Next, it can also build your confidence as the time is on your side. You manage to control your time and even have plenty of times to be spend for something more important.

          Other advantages are complete work without stress. As I have said it before, being overwhelmed with works can stresses you out. Therefore, organising everything can reduce the amount of stress that you will be facing. On top of that, being organise may help you to keep on schedule and meet the deadlines as you are prioritizing the important works first before doing the least important ones.

         Lastly, our session with Miss Syahida ended with a fun activity. We were assigned in a group activity where we have to make a Semester Calendar. My team consist of five boys were brainstorming for ideas before making it a reality. Take a look at our own Semester Calendar:

          Before we end our session with Miss Syahida, we were required to make our own Semester Calendar. During that day in the evening, i straight away do my own calendar. Take a look at it:

          It may not look complete but Miss Syahida told us that we can add anything important in this calendar so that we would be organized, on track with our deadlines and be prepared for anything in class. The next activity is a Job Task Analysis before doing our own prioritize task list.

          After these three activities, I am now acknowledged about the importance of sorting out your tasks. Now that I know that I should focus on the important jobs first before completing the unnescessary things that I want to do. I should prioritize on my assignments that have the shortest amount of time before doing the ones that have a longer and further deadline.

          I guess that is all for today. I can not wait for my next class. I hope its going to help me more 🙏