How good are you at time management? Do you have a schedule for work, home and play? Or are you continuously double-booking recreational activities, missing deadlines and generally letting time manage you? If so, you’re not alone. Sometimes being busy is a good thing, and sometimes it can be overwhelming and debilitating. Which is where meditation comes in.
Here are 4 ways that meditation can help to make you better at time management:
- It can help you be more efficient
According to The Art of Living, by meditating a few minutes each day, you can train your mind to become calm and focused more easily, which helps with better concentration and efficiency. This is especially helpful if you find that your mind often wanders at work. When engaging in a repetitive task, you are able to tap into that meditating space of being awake and aware, thus making you much more efficient and able to finish said task quickly, so that you can move on to more stimulating activities.
- It can reduce your stress over time pressures
There is nothing worse than staring at a list of complex tasks, all with tight deadlines and the echo of promises you have made that you will get them all done in an unreasonable timeframe. One of the best things about meditation is being aware of your body and trying to calm and relax yourself. If practised regularly, this is a handy tool when overwhelmed by deadlines. Danny Penman of Frantic World writes:
“When you’re really up against the wall and time is slipping through your fingers, get everything back on track by grabbing a moment for yourself. Close your eyes and take a deep breath”.
This practice can help you think much more clearly about approaching tasks with time pressures attached, and prioritising accordingly.
- It can help you to let go of things outside of your control
Whether a mistake has been made at work, you’re late for an important appointment due to public transport delays, or you are waiting for good or bad news about something that means a lot to you, it is easy to become stressed and full of anxiety. Meditation can help to reduce your sweat over the small stuff. Kristin McGee advises that in times of high stress when things are out of your control, meditation is a most helpful tool.
“Use the few extra moments you get….to check in with your body: drop your shoulders, deepen your breath, and remind yourself what you are thankful for.”
- It can help prevent procrastination
We all put off tasks we don’t want to do, and then beat ourselves up about it later when we have less time to do it than before, because we were procrastinating. Meditation not only calms and relaxes the mind, it also encourages positive rather than negative self talk. Yunha Kim of MindBodyGreen explains:
“A daily practice can reduce frustration, self-deprecation, and giving up on tasks”.
By remaining present and aware of your thoughts and feelings through meditation, you can decipher easily what is stopping you from doing a task, and encourage more helpful ways to get your task completed.