Time Management

Definition

Time management refers to the process or act to plan and exercise control over the amount of time that is used for performing specific activities. The main purpose of time management is to increase productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. For time management a variety of techniques, skills and tools may be used for managing time when specific goals, projects and tasks are needed to be accomplished within a given due date.

Time management involve a wide range of activities and they are planning, setting goals, allocating, delegation, analyzing the amount of time spent, monitoring, scheduling, organizing and prioritizing. Time management was initially used for business activities but with time the scope of the term became broader and included personal activities also. The time management system includes a combination techniques, processes, tools and methods. Time management is extremely important in developing any project or task, because it helps in determining the completion time and scope of the project.

With proper time management, a project can be completed within the due date and productivity and efficiency can be improved. This will lead to overall betterment of the employees as well as the organization.

Themes of time management

The main themes of time management include the following:

• To create an environment which is favorable for effectiveness
• To set priorities
• To perform activity according to those priorities
• To reduce time spent on non priorities

Time management – a subset of different concepts

• Time management is a subset of project management and is considered one of the main functions in project management.
• It is considered to be a subset of personal knowledge management.
• It is also considered to be a subset of attention management, which is related to managing the cognitive resources and particularly the time which humans have allocated in their mind for conducting some activities.

Many sociologists like Professor Stephen Smith have pointed out that the way, time is viewed by the workers is related to the social issues like the gender roles, institution and type of family and the amount of labor given by an individual.