Time is Precious - Don't Waste it

Managing time effectively and efficiently is one technique to accomplish a productive day. People most times are fond of wasting that which money can not buy, and that's a major life mistake. Everyone has been guilty of poorly managing time at one point in life. However, as we grow, the importance of time management continues to be crystal clear, and that's why our organisation skills and multi-tasking come into place. I still struggle to manage time effectively even today, but we can only try and ensure that we are better than we used to be a day ago.

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As I said, I have poorly managed time on numerous occasions, but there was a time when my poor management skills almost cost me my job. So I was still new in my current job in 2021 and operating in the Audit analyst role. Some of my job function includes conducting a management system audit and writing audit reports. It was one of my early days, so I have not gotten a hang of the job as I struggled to make sense of many things at that time because of the technicality of some of those audits. So during the period, I was in an Audit session being conducted by my boss, and I was to write a report based on the Audit findings. The Audit session took a week, and the Audit report was supposed to take an extra week to complete.

At the end of the supposed one week, the Audit report was still not ready. My boss was initially understanding, as he said I was still new on the job, so he gave me an additional week. Ladies and gentlemen, you will not believe I could not finish the task even with the extra week added. That was when my boss took it, almost resulting in me losing my new job. That was my first big task at that company, and I was fumbling with it due to my inability to manage my time effectively and efficiently. The big issue was that I struggled to make sense of the technical terms and concepts I was exposed to for the first time. Also, I was still present on Hive then; I was very active, so for that reason, the time I was supposed to use and work, I was reading or creating blog posts. Also, social media sites like Twitter took up most of my time, contributing to poor management.

Due to my poor time management skills, I noticed that I was hardly invited to come on Audits any more For 2 months, My boss would rather call on someone else to join him on audits than call me. It was understandable, I had come short in my first task at the organisation, and that lowered the trust the boss had in my ability. I was hardly given any task, and because I was still on probation, it delayed my being confirmed as a full-time staff. So, My poor management skills almost cost me my Job and delayed my progress at work. It was a dark moment where nothing was making sense to me anymore.

I think the whole lesson learned should be itemized, so:

• I learnt a whole lot of lessons from that experience, and the one which forever sticks with me if first impression matter. If you are not on your best behaviour on the first day of the meeting, it will take months to change a person's opinion about you.
• Also, I learned that prioritization is key to ensuring that Time is managed efficiently and effectively. Trying to do it all simultaneously might not work, so prioritise what you need in order of importance and manage your time around the most important.
• Have a checklist to track your tasks for this day, so you can easily know the task and activities you have done and the ones you have left.
• Do away with social media; it is a nig time waster, especially when you do not make money from it
• Be always open to learning
• Never shy away from asking for help from people much more knowledgeable than you in a given field.
• Improve your organisational skills; it will greatly aid your time management skills

Thanks for reading

By the way, if you are reading this, kindly delegate some Resources credit to me; I am short on it. Thank you as you do so.