Business Communication

Have you ever find yourself wishing for more hours in a day? Or have you ever felt like you were juggling with thousands of tasks that need to be done at one time? If you ever do, start thinking to manage your time from now on. Managing your time is very important because it will help you balance a professional life and gives you time to be creative. In this essay I will discuss the importance of effective time management skills for successful business communication, which will include some points like how you plan your time, how you can set your goals, have a balance in your work as well as in your life. However, this essay will also define the crisis time management that might happen when you have lack of planning, lack of self-discipline, which lead to stress. The aim of writing this essay is to recognise the importance of effective time management and be able to apply the skills to determine priorities, develop simple self-management techniques and manage others effectively.
Establishing goals is the first step in effective management. You need time to achieve goals, that is why you should organize your days so that you are spending your time on activities that will help you achieve your goals. You will find it easy to adapt with the situation when you using your time effectively and as it is will greater progress toward your goals. As you make progress in efforts to control time, you will want to set goals for the time you save, ( Mackenzie, 1990). Without goals, there is little or no meaning in work and life, and without meaning there can be only dissatisfaction and general unhappiness, (Glesson, 1994). A goal must be achievable if you can’t reach you goal, you will only frustrate yourself and may give up and destroy your motivation. You can choose to succeed or choose to fail but having goals makes the difference.
People sometimes get confuse between goals and priorities. Priorities therefore are objectives that have been ranked in order of importance, (Webber, 1972). Whatever is on top is your number one priority. The next one down is the number two priority and so on. Often we seem to have many goals without taking the care to determine what is really important. When you are facing problems with priorities the best way is to have cards. It can be helpful for sorting priorities. This is one of the effective time management skills because you know how to put your first priority at the top and be more focus in it instead of doing all the tasks for example that will just cause you stress.

“Time management is not about time in the abstract but it is about what you can accomplish with time,” (Mackenzie, 1990, p.25). What it means is that what you can do or produce with the time effectively. In order to get an effective time management, you have to make a good planning before you even do anything. Planning itself means thinking about what you are going to do and how you are going to accomplish it. You have got to really prepare for the future by making your own decisions. When you have all the planning on what you do before you do something, you won’t have things mixed up. It is not enough simply to create a great plan but you must be able to implement it. Planning enables you to get clear pictures of what you are doing. Start with having list of things to do, daily planning, weekly planning or even a monthly planning. A good planning will result in a good time management and therefore will succeed in any ways.

Figure 1.1 Daily planning

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

As the table shown above, what most people have in the daily planning is goals for the day, for example, 1st, 2nd, 3rd task that you must get done. Also scheduled appointments, meeting, to do list or things that you don’t want to forget, lower priority tasks you hope to get done. By having this daily planning you won’t have to worry about things that you have to do.

Figure 1.2 6 monthly planning

January	February	March	April	May	June

Whatever planning you are using whether it is daily or 6 monthly planning but the main purpose is as a reminder device to help you see the step clearly and to help to achieve as you complete each step.
If you have lack of planning and lack of self-discipline it will lead to crisis time management. There is no way that someone can be expected to continue to work at maximum productivity while experiencing negative stress, (Wenig, 1993, p.145). Managing time well can prevent much of the stress.
In conclusion, effective time management is what makes success possible. The real value of time management is that it enhances our lives in all dimensions, (Webber, 1972). What we gain from time management is not more time but a better life. When you learn to use effectively the time that is given to you, you can have more time with your family, avoid getting stressed out, improve your personal level of productivity and be more successful in achieving your goals.

REFERENCES

Gleeson, K. 1994. The Personal Efficiency Program. John Willey Inc, Canada.

Mackenzie, A. 1990, The Time Trap. Amacom, NewYork.

Webber, R. 1972. Time and management. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, Melbourne.

Wenig, L. 1993, The A to Z of Time Management. Australia Print Group, Sydney (NSW).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albrecth, K. 1979, Stress and the manager. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.

Gleeson, K. 1994, The personal Efficiency Program. John Willey and Son Inc.

Kotnour, T.J. 1993,Time management helps first-line maintenance supervisors handle pressures, Industrial Engineering, V.25, n.3, p.50(4).

Mackenzie, A. 1990, The Time Tap. AMACOM, New York (NSW).

Pettiford, H. 2001, Time’s a Wastin!, Black Enterprise, v.31, i.11, p.322.

Taylor, Harold L. 1981, Making Time Work for You. Dell Publishing, New York.

Webber, R. 1972, Time and Management. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, Melbourne.

Wenig, L. 1993, The A to Z of Time Management. Australia Print Group, Sydney (NSW).

Williams, K. 2000, Tips on Effective Time Management, The Economist, v.12, p.278-300.

Yates, Jere E. 1979, Managing Stress. AMACOM. New York.