Mastering Time Management: How to Prioritize What Truly Matters

Often, when we speak about “time management,” we begin to feel anxious. How can we fit all the tasks we need to do into the limited time we have each day? We need to be parents, spouses, maintain our homes, work and earn a living, take care of our health, and most importantly, nurture our spiritual lives through learning, prayer, and more. Together with that, we also want to include leisure, fun, and relaxation, and somehow, all of this needs to fit into just 24 hours a day- much of which is taken up by the daily necessities of eating and sleeping.

If we break down our daily tasks, sort them out, and evaluate their importance and the time they require, we’ll likely discover that large portions of our time are simply wasted.

Recent studies on time management have shown that over a lifetime, the average person spends nearly five years eating, about four years waiting in line, four years cleaning the house, three years preparing meals, one full year searching for misplaced items, eight months dealing with junk mail, and six months waiting for traffic lights to turn green.

In other words, a significant amount of time is lost on non-essential or unimportant tasks- and could be used far more effectively through early planning. To do this, we need to clearly define our most important tasks, and rank them by priority.

We must examine what is most important to us according to our value system, and allocate specific time for those tasks. We should assess what’s important on a family or relationship level and schedule regular time for that too. We need to also account for our professional responsibilities and designate time for them. Once that’s done, we can find room for additional tasks in the gaps between.

When we act without planning, responding instinctively to whatever happens, we fill our time with “sand and water”, and end up having no room left for the “big stones” which are the truly important things.

For example, a person spends eight hours a day at work and comes home with two hours left to spend with family. Those two hours can be used to bond with the children and create a warm family atmosphere. Instead of radiating positivity however, he uses those hours to criticize and express dissatisfaction. What has he done? He filled those two free hours with sand and gravel instead of precious stones. He may find himself with only ten minutes of meaningful family time left which is a poor outcome compared to the two hours he could’ve used wisely.

If someone gets a parking ticket, and they spend hours stewing in frustration and negative thoughts, this is time filled with sand and gravel, instead of gems.

Likewise, someone might spend hours on the computer, on unnecessary phone calls, or gossiping, and then realize they don’t have enough time left for what really matters. At the end of the day, their time container is full- but with what?

It is therefore essential to pause and reflect on which values are truly important, and structure your schedule around them. The best time to do this is during a weekly planning session, where you sit down and fill your calendar- not only with work-related tasks, but also with family time, personal interests, and hobbies. These are just as important and deserve a proper place in your schedule.