Time management in the past has never been one of my strong traits. Many times, during school or different work project, I would be the person to wait until something was asked for or the last possible free moment I had to get something done. I realize, to further myself personally and professionally with an MBA, there is going to be an enormous amount of extra time and work that I must put in and that time management needs to be a skill I develop. The following plan is something I have already started enacting and will continue to work through as classes continue.
Step one is speak to and coordinate with family and my employer. My wife and in-laws are going to be instrumental in my ability to get my school work done each week. My wife is aware of the extra housework or watching our daughter she may have to do if I have work that needs to be done. Her parents also know and are very excited that they get to watch our daughter even more often while I try to read and write without distractions.
Before starting my MBA, my family and I already feel like we have limited time for everything that we want to do. The second step of my time management plan is to identify necessary sacrifices. In a study of graduate students giving advice on how to succeed in graduate school, Edward Lazaros and Jim Flowers state “one may need to devote less time to nonacademic obligations in order to have enough time to do well in graduate studies” (Lazaros, 37). I will be looking with my wife to see what types of social activities and other necessary sacrifices we can make to afford enough time for school work.
Another step in my time management plan is to draw up a schedule for not only study time by social and family time as well. My family is the most important thing to me and sacrificing all of the time with them is not an option. According to Sarah M. Flood and Katie R. Genadek, “Research shows a positive relationship between the global measure of marital interaction or frequency of shared time and marital stability, marital happiness, and marital satisfaction” (Flood, 145). It is important to me that I not only have enough time to study but have plenty of time with my wife and rapidly growing daughter.
Step number four in my plan is to utilize technology to its greatest extent to make time management as easy as possible. This not only includes myself but my family and work too. I will be employing an online calendar to schedule time which will be shared so everyone is aware of study, work and family time. I also plan to use other efficiency applications to maximize the use of study time. Applications like OneNote and OneDrive that allow me to easily share documents and research between computers without having to spend time emailing or saving in different places will help me make the most use out of the time I have.
The last step in my plan is to design and incorporate rewards for succeeding. “Symbolic rewards can be more important than money” (Thompson, 36). Setting goals and rewards for myself will help me stay motivated to get school work done on time or even early. These rewards of spending more time with family on outings, seeing friends more often or just being able to relax at home with a movie or videos games should help keep everyone in the family happy while still meeting all my school goals.
Armed with these five steps, I feel confident that I will be able to accomplish the goals I set for myself. With help, I will be able to manage my time, family life, social life, work and school. My family, friends and technology will all be playing a part but together I will be able to achieve my MBA along with a good work-school-life balance.
Works Cited
Flood, Sarah M. and Katie R. Genadek. “Time for Each Other: Work and Family Constraints among Couples.” Journal of Marriage & Family, vol. 78, no. 1, Feb. 2016, pp. 142-164. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/jomf.12255.
Lazaros, Edward and Jim Flowers. “KEYS to SUCCEEDING in a Master’s PROGRAM.” Technology & Engineering Teacher, vol. 73, no. 5, Feb. 2014, pp. 34-39. EBSCOhost, bakeru.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=93982650&site=ehost-live.
Thompson, Leigh L. Making the Team: A Guide For Managers. 5th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.
This post is part of the MBA series. I started my MBA in April of 2017 and decided to get the full use out of some of my writing by also posting it on my blog.
