Canada is a land of opportunities; still some people it difficult to get jobs that they aspire for and are capable of, what could be the reasons behind that? When I look back since the time I landed as immigrant in Canada, what has contributed towards my career progression. I feel at the core is time management.
Individuals can be classified into two categories: those who use time, those who abuse time. Where do you find yourself and what is its implication on you in terms of job and career opportunities that you can avail to make your life better?
Self-profiling with respect to time
What could be the starting point? Based on my personal experience, I can say it begins with self-profiling with respect to time. A self examination will let you know…whether you are a preemptive (Trying to do things before timeline or beating the line), or perfectionist (Waiting to long and making best the enemy of better), or procrastinator (Delaying things as long as you can), or a people pleaser (Saying yes to one and all and not left with adequate time for yourself). This understanding can help in providing the starting point, the root cause.
Identify priorities
The second step is to identify priorities, what is truly important by comparing relative worth of activities. Knowing and committing to priorities can help you to organize and execute your time and activities around them. You can use Stephen Covey’s Urgent-Important matrix given below to understand the nature of activities.
If you have more activities, in urgent and important matrix, you might feel the life to be productive, but life shall be stressful with lot of wear and tear. Let us ask our self a simple question? Do you wait for the last date to do an important task? If yes, why do you do it that way? Does it helps or creates stress by pushing different important things that you have to do into your urgent to do list basket? Would your life be better off if you accomplish the important things much before they become urgent? A self-reflection in this regard can be of vital help.
The ideal scenario is to have more activities in Important, but not urgent bucket as you will be doing things that are important in a non-stressful and timely manner. Family, health, career, which are important for us, all come in this basket.
Effectively executing
If a good career is a priority, start asking what shall take me there? What shall I be doing this month, this week, and today? This will make a roadmap for you and then you can allocate time to those activities. The key is to start the action and not wait for next day, next week, or next month. That never comes. What we have is today and that ideal tomorrow has neither come nor is likely to.
The important step for effectively executing this plan is to understand that planning a day might prove to be a failure, so plan a week. It provides room for adjustments and modifications that take care of emergencies that are bound to arise. Commit yourself to what you will accomplish in the week and then review it at the end of the week and then find out time to plan the activities for the next week.
Challenge is not to manage time but manage our self. I strongly believe, we have not to manage time, but actually manage our self; and it all begins with the understanding of priorities. The starting point is to understand who you are, what is really important for you, what you want to achieve? Once this foundation is ready, you are ready to embark on the journey. It will not only help in building and sharpening vital skills in you for the job that you are looking for.
Let me conclude with what Napoleon conveyed regarding planning and execution, “No successful battle followed its plan but he planned each of his battles far more meticulously than any earlier General had done”. So, don’t give up if your plan does not work in the first week. Don’t feel its futile and will never gonna work, because the habit of planning and developing a plan regarding your activities is significantly important as a habit to be given up too soon. Persistence shall pay and soon you will find how you can make it work for you.
Sonika
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