Time Management vs. Real Life – Stop Planning Your Day! Expert Opinion

The internet is full of articles discussing how to be an expert in time management. Most of them highly recommend planning one’s day, hour by hour, and minute by minute to be the most efficient version of yourself. 

Achieving the highest productivity is now deemed as one of the greatest showbiz accomplishments a person can master. 

However, while you are arduously planning the details of the day, you might be missing out on many valuable moments. So today, let us take a break from micromanaging every aspect of our lives and look at why there is more to life than being able to conquer time. 

Below you will find a few reasons to convince yourself that even not planning a day could do you some good. 

Time-Consuming Time Management 

For many people, mapping out a day might take more time than actually performing the tasks. If you are a student, with the few hours available after classes, creating a schedule might take away a large portion of the time. Instead of actually working on, say, term papers, you might keep thinking about how to stick to everything planned.

Fortunately, now students can turn to professional services for help with any of their academic papers. Unfortunately, that might not be the case with every professional assignment you might have. 

Getting Past the Lists 

The omnipresence of digital technology has us hooked on reminders, timers, and calendar notifications. It seems like there are never-ending to-do lists, emails to answer, plans to make. And by the end of the day, you find yourself overworked and overwhelmed. 

In fact, this makes you completely dependant on these schedules and an overwhelming amount of things to do. As Brigid Schulte puts it, “being overwhelmed and having too much to do overtime takes away our sense of happiness and satisfaction”. 

Time Management Could Create Anxiety

The many organizational systems propagated often set a high standard of efficiency. Today, there are many apps for students, professionals, and even kids to manage their days. 

Even if you miss one task only, it leaves you with a feeling of failure. The idea that one should manage every second of life is ridiculous and almost impossible. 

Planning thus puts enormous pressure on individuals, often leading to anxiety. This pressure might even lead to more procrastination, and cause struggle to sleep as well. 

So as opposed to the satisfaction that management is supposed to deliver, in reality, one could end up anxious and in severe stress. 

Plans That Don’t Work Out 

As good as the well managed day might look on paper, in real life, plans might not work out exactly as you wanted. Everyone knows this and has experienced disappointment at least once in life. In the end, it comes down to what your response is when plans fail. 

Not everyone is good at planning. So if any plans don’t work out, the trick is not to dwell on it but to continue the rest of the day with a positive attitude. 

The Present Moments

Time management could be helpful in several ways, but do not lose sight of the present moment. There are occasions when there is no need to follow a plan to the letter. 

The only moment you have absolute control is right now, and that is what you want to experience. You can’t completely live in the unique perspective of the present if you are constantly preparing for the next hour or stage of your life. 

Planning will not rob you of those, nor will it guarantee positive outcomes all the time. On the other hand, mindfulness can actually improve your cognitive skills. 

It is extremely important to realize that scheduling your day at the expense of not enjoying it might not be the best approach. 

Go for Goal Setting

If time management could be working against you, how to actually make sure that you are productive? One way to approach this is by setting goals for the day rather than pinning down each task to a specific schedule. 

In their work The Power of Full Engagement, Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr discuss how managing your energy is the secret to high productivity. 

It is about managing yourself, how you allocate your effort to different tasks rather than managing the clock. This will help you develop a more personalized method. This will balance the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual elements of your life.

Final Words

Mindfulness can only bring positivity to one’s life. It is also one of the most enjoyable methods one you can adopt to experience genuine happiness. 

While you focus on ticking the boxes of any list, do not limit yourself to the schedule alone. Creating a positive routine that most suits your lifestyle needs is the best way to manage the day.