Time management at home during Covid-19

Time management at home seems to be very hard for most of the people. Now question is : “Why to manage time at home? We can do anything at anytime in our home!!” But this is something we have to change specially during this time where we are totally stuck at home.

Why we need to change?

Our home is now not only our nest, it has to play so many roles these days. Like school, workstations, coaching classes, yoga session, social gatherings and many more. So we have to adapt the different stations in their respective ways. Its not normal to be in our nightwear or tees for a formal video call meetings though it is in our home. Kids should be neatly dressed up for their online classes. So these changes are necessary not to make ourselves paragon but to help ourselves to lead a better and a positive life specially in these tough days, where everyone is striving for mental peace and happiness.

“You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone;

change begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

Roy T.Bennett

What change we need?

Now, a friend of mine asked me why to change when we are at home, we can be a couch potato anytime at home. But here is the mistake, the situation is not same, things around us have changed a lot so we too have to go according to that. We need to manage our time, yes the big word “TIME MANAGEMENT”. Frequently people take this” Time Management ” as very gruelling and something burdensome. But effectively managing our time is literally the stress reliever for us.

What is Time Management?

Time management is simply blocking your time for each task which you are responsible to complete in a day. Now, time blocking includes everything starting from your work from home schedule to play with your kids and most important your me time. Yes, proper Time Management gives you ample of time to live in your own way without your guilt constantly scratching your brain towards those pending tasks.

Now we are managing each and every work from our home. Weekends are also something new now. We are not stepping out to see movies, better we are choosing some good web series and stick to our couch watching those web series. We are no more going out to parties but zooming at home only. No more we are going to hang out at our preferred restaurant , instead of that we are trying our culinary skills. And I have seen social media getting flooded with some lovely food pictures during these quarantine.

There lots of things in our to-do-list that need to be checked and it can only be done by Time Management. It is the process of working smartly not hardly.

How to do Time Management at home?

In the current situation, staying at home doesn’t mean its a day off. If you analyze properly you can save time from your working hours now, as you don’t need to travel to your workplaces, there is no pickup and drop off your kids to school and many more to this list. We just need to manage our time properly. Here are few ways that will help you learn the art of Time Management at home .

Make a Planner

If you say you are not a planner person, then you have to be. Prior planning is very essential to check what are the awaiting task you need to do in a day. You need to maintain a daily planner to effectively use your time. So that you won’t waste your time thinking what your jobs to do in a day. Daily planning helps you to be focused and develop a clear vision to manage everything without spending much time.

“By failing to prepare , you are preparing to fail.”

Benjamin Franklin

Prioritize your work

There are so many to-do-list in a day, and we don’t want to spend extra few minutes to analyze which task need to complete first. We feel pressurized to finish them randomly. So the first thing you should do is to Prioritize your work. After planning the to-do-list, figure it out which are the most important tasks to wrap up today. It is always a good idea to make a list of the tasks according to their importance. So that you can focus on them according to the level of importance of the task. If you consider some less important task can be done another day or can be delegate to someone else, then you can do that. This will make you a bit less occupied and you can do the more important tasks in a better way.

Try not to procrastinate

When so many jobs are in queue, very often random thoughts of completing those tasks run into our mind and we start thinking too many things at time. And the ongoing task gets much less attention than it requires. Research shows that procrastinators experience more stress and less efficient. As a result the graph of productivity vs time taken has a negative result to show. And the whole process keep on lagging. You need to check on yourselves, minimize all the distractions, commit yourself. And yes, on completion of task reward yourself. This will keep you motivated and focused.

No need to try Multitasking

Many studies have shown that Multitasking is a myth. A human brain cannot split its attention and focus simultaneously on two or more different jobs. Doing two or more jobs that require same level of brain cannot be performed at the same time. Trying to be multitasking only yields low level of performance. It only leads to low productivity and more time consuming. Low level functions like walking and chewing or walking and talking over phone are not considered as multitasking. It is very clear that the more we try to multitask, the more delay it get to accomplish our assigned tasks. So try to concentrate on one thing at a time and you will be better off in the long run.

Conclusion

So good planning of dividing our time between specific activities is the Time Management skill. A good Time Management enables you to finish your task more timely , makes you more productive with less stress level and helps you to lead a peaceful life.

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