SCS32-W3 || Real Life Problem Solving Challenge: Time Management

Time management is something people find very difficult to manage their time on a daily basis because of uncertainties that come with a day. You may end up doing something you didn't want to do that day, and before you even did the main thing, time's gone, and you live on postponing events or regretting why you couldn't do a particular thing.

Such has happened to me countless times. I found it difficult to balance my day since I ventured into doing things online. It was recently that I discovered that a lot of tools can actually help me achieve this. Let me talk about this....

To have a balanced day, I plan my activities the night before the next day to avoid disappointments or regrets of not doing certain things. I also plan for uncertainties and how I can still have a balanced day in 24 hours. Even as I'm writing this post, I was supposed to submit it earlier, but things came up, and I had to attend to a lot of unplanned things, which places me in a very tight corner to meet deadlines. But how am I able to balance up my day and ensure all activities are met?

My sister taught me something valuable. She'll write down a list of things she wants to do the next day and possible times she would want to do these things so as to meet up. That's one of the methods I use to prioritize my activities for the next day, especially now that I have to include content creation into my activities from the Steemit challenge.

• Notebook Method: This mobile notebook method is used to write down a list of activities for the next day so you won't have to live on probability or do things that enter your way. I know a lot of people plan their activities and have different activities to plan. Same with me, who stays home and fiddles with my phone. I tend to be even busier than people that are working because I'm always on my phone for a long time. So I'll spell out what I want to do online and offline.

Monday

	Notebook Method

This is how I break down my day. After fixing these on my notebook, I have another list where I prioritize my activities and those that may tend to be uncertainties.

Important activities

• Checking all my apps

• Business calls

• Attending a meeting

• Hosting an online class

These are activities I can't miss for anything. They are my scale of preference. If I fail to manage my time, I will put other activities on shutdown and ensure that these main activities are carried out, even though it's late.

• **Using an alarm on my phone as a reminder: an alarm clock keeps me in check. If I know that I'm to attend a meeting by 5pm, I'll set my alarm to 4pm. Once my alarm rings, it will notify me to get ready for the physical meeting. I set different times for different activities with my phone, and these alarms help me know when to switch to something else even though I can't completely achieve the previous, and I need to inculcate serious discipline to be able to move forward.

These screenshots show that I do set alarms for almost everything I do so I can switch comfortably. Take a look at this screenshot. You'll notice that the alarm rings once it's time or it's close to the time you set.

	My alarm
	Selfie with the Alarm

• Pomodoro app: This app was discovered by me recently, and I find it to be very effective because you can set time for your activity and be conscious about it. It's more effective than using alarms because you can set 1 hour for an activity, and it would be counting down. This countdown notifies you every 25 minutes that you are close to your time lapse.

This increases consciousness and improves alertness when doing your own personal activity. Let's make this practical using the screenshots below. You can give yourself a break and a long break from the original time you set. This helps you get a rest from what you do, and it's compulsory that you follow; otherwise, the notification sound will ring until you're tired of the noise.

	Pomodoro app
	Dashboard for timing
	Breaks
	Timer

I'm a very busy person, and I do a lot of online activities daily that demand my time. Most of the things that keep me very busy are online things. I'll spell them out because they take most of my time and are also essential. If I don't do them, there's a big problem.

• Checking the apps in my phone: I have a lot of mining apps I do open on a daily basis so as not to miss streaks. If I don't open one of the apps, I'll miss something financial, which I usually use to complete my data purchase. This takes hours to open and complete tasks and quests.

_{screenshot of the apps I do open}

• Business calls: There's no day I don't engage in business calls. There's always something to discuss, either questions on how to learn a particular skill, how to trade, or the like. These calls are mostly deals on P2P as well and some trading strategies, which I may need to sell to my clients after informing them about it. Critical. These are people that need your attention for them to be helped financially or people from whom I gain knowledge. The calls are usually lengthy and time-consuming, but I'm left without a choice.

Business calls

• House chores: 20% of my day is spent on chores, which also includes cooking because that's my chore too. I ensure that the house is clean and tidy, and I make sure that I cook for the family before doing anything.

• Mentoring my students at night: I can be less busy during the day but am always busy at night, so most times, I sleep late. I spend so much time teaching my students a lot of digital skills, attending to questions, and replying to their messages on WhatsApp and the likes. Most times, I'll sleep and leave them hanging.

_{screenshots of my classes.}

My mindset saves my time a lot. When I program my mind to the fact that I want to do something and won't need distractions of any sort, I make sure I attend to such needs. Now let me give you a real-case scenario of a technique I use, especially when doing physical activities that consume my time. I don't keep a certain time to do things online, except otherwise.

When I'm going out somewhere, I'm always on my phone. If I'm doing chores, I make sure I double-task, or when I'm on a bus, I'll use that time to complete other online activities or reply to messages about my mentorship. There was a man I met today, and he wanted to trade with the new strategy I discovered. He told me to come over to his place and teach him while he funds his account.

This was impromptu because I didn't plan on going anywhere today. I had to tell him to place a video call while he shares his screen and I show him what to do or do the explanation online. With that, I've prevented what physical meetups would have brought about.

Probably he would have wanted to entertain me, and his wife and children may want to have a discussion with me that'll demand I keep my phone aside and listen to them.

Knowing fully well that I had learning challenges to complete, I had to turn down the offer, no matter how enticing it was, and look for an alternative that would favor me as well. The techniques are outlined...

• Avoiding physical meetups
• Spending much on physical meetups
• Using an online medium instead
• Splitting my screen for different purposes

	Splitting of screen

Personally, I've struggled with poor time management because I tend to do unnecessary things, get distracted, and then procrastinate. I'll tell myself there's still time. The time I'm supposed to use in having my business calls, I'll use to watch reels on Facebook or even movies that are like 3 hours long. Before I realize it, it's already evening and time is gone.

I'll be struggling to reply to messages at night, tutor my students, post on Steemit, and even have family time. Why? What I was supposed to do in the day so that my night would be much freer is what I'm piling up to do at night. This has made me skip a lot of things and also makes me sleep late at night.

How did I improve? I make sure I don't open my Facebook application, and I also make sure movies aren't on my phone because they could be a distraction. The only time I can have a movie is at night because that's when I tend to have much time.

I also made sure I stuck to the Pomodoro app, which helps improve my consistency and alertness level. When I'm at work, I'll ensure that I complete what I was doing before moving to the next, and I'll also ensure that procrastination is fought to prevent thoughts like "I'll do this."

Have a sketch of how your day would look, in words. If you don't have this sketch written down, it may be difficult for you to organize your schedule and have a balanced day because you'll do things that come up, whether important or not. You'll be on probability without time consciousness. You'll be like... What's the next thing to do?

• Avoid watching unnecessary things that aren't part of your day. Ensure the important ones are done before talking about the side hustles.

• If you're a worker and you're finding it difficult to balance your time, I think using the Pomodoro app will be of great help to you.

• Don't spend too much on a particular activity that's normal to do, and don't live on regrets. Look to connect your dots and don't repeat the same mistake the next day.

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I invite @m-fdo, @akareen, and @kouba01.