THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME MANAGEMENT

STUDIES have proved that vision is the only universal characteristic of successful men and women. Vision is about the future; and the future is about vision. Vision is a picture of a preferred future.

It is seeing the future before it becomes a reality. Vision gives birth to focus and eliminates unnecessary options. Never pursue money, pursue vision. We must therefore learn how to establish individual, family, community and national vision; set standards for performance, create a focus and direction for our lives.

Developing vision comes when we begin to think carefully about the future in terms of our lives, families, society and the nation. What really controls what we do on a day-by-day basis? We can answer this question in many ways, but an exceptionally significant consideration has to do with our perspective on time. This usually has to do with whatever we do in order to bring our vision to pass, and what our perspective and stand is in the flow of time. We must not allow the past to control our present. When we allow the past to control us, life becomes just a maintenance routine.

With time, we usually develop a sense of our own personal, family or national history. Somehow failures can be forgotten as time goes by, and success becomes enshrined in our culture and traditions. This could help in providing a sense of pride and stability. We should always remember the past in order to gain strength and encouragement. However, to be controlled by the past is destructive and hinders progress. We will always fall into the maintenance trap when our sense of the past overpowers our commitment to the future.

When the past successes begin to control us, we then usually design our present activities to replicate past patterns of success. We must, however, not just allow our past to control us; we must also learn to control our present by refusing to manage our lives by crisis. To be effective in our homes and in our communities, we must allow vision or the future to become our perspective in all our present operations and activities. Actually we must allow the future to always intrude into our present.

Unfortunately the future is usually like a hurricane – disruptive, unsettling, demanding and sometimes even frightening because it stands in judgment over our past and only tolerates our present patiently. While drawing wisdom from the past and managing carefully our present, we must order our priorities in terms of what can be, rather than what was or is.

Since vision and dreams are accomplished in time, it is imperative that all of us learn how to effectively manage the time God has given us. Time management requires that we exercise a disciplined lifestyle. We must learn to do things that enhance our lives and visions even when we don’t like or enjoy it. We must organise our lives in such a way that we do not waste time on unimportant things. Time wasters must be dealt with accordingly. We must exercise the power of the will to say no to distractions and unnecessary interruptions. If we fail to manage our time, the following will inevitably occur:

l Stress, which is a state of mental or emotional strain. Stress causes emotional tension, which in turn causes underperformance.
l Burn out – it means to melt, break and become unusable.
l Crises management – this is when everything in our lives becomes unstable, dangerous and difficult. This is when we begin running up and down putting out fires because things are out of control.
l Distraction of meaningful relationships.
l We may get fired from a good job or our business may collapse.
Our vision must be achieved in time in order to make an impact on our generation. This requires that we persist in managing our time even though sometimes we may find ourselves drifting into wasting our time on trivial things. Effective time use improves with constant practice. We only have one life to live and impact our generation, let us, therefore, learn to maximise our time. Effectively managing our time will always produce a life of excellence, purpose and impact. Wherever we find ourselves in life, husband, wife, teacher, manager, pastor CEO etc. let us use our time profitable for the benefit of society.

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