In my recent survey about causes of stress, I realized a major issue that was ignored by many. Bad time management; this is what many volunteers indicated in the survey. A good analysis of the survey results showed how crucial part time management had in the cause of daily incurred stress. So in this article I would like to elaborate on the different phases in an individual's life and how they manage time then.

In the school days, like many I was an average student too. What I lacked was time management as seen in many brilliant students. I used to attend school, come back home, and occasionally study or revise what was done in school, play around or do some leisure activities, eat up my dinner and off I went to bed. What is the point of all this, at the teenage phase in your life, many tend to ignore the value of time. Many take life as it comes without any planning and without any goals. If you are a keen observer you would notice that your teenage cousin or kid in the next block would be very often found playing at evenings at a particular time. So the point assumed by many about kids or teenagers not planning their day out, is totally wrong. They do plan their day, however they do so with prioritizing different elements, like play time, or party time, or even time to eat. This however is very different compared to any adolescent, and how one would prioritize and plan in that phase of life. Time management for an adolescent would be completely different as they would prioritize on elements like college work, friends, interest groups, or even study groups, are more complex compared to before. As you go the next phase of life the number of elements keeps increasing and to prioritize according to these elements becomes intricate.

Humans crave for the best; and after getting the best they still would never be satisfied. A constant crave for success is what an average man would strive for everyday. In the process many things are streamlined like, friends, relatives, or even dear loved ones. This is where most of the problems begin from. Friends may feel that you are become too arrogant enough to talk. Relatives may be angry with you for months and still won’t say a word, worrying that it might affect your career. Dear loved ones like your spouse, fiancé or someone you are going out with would just be victimized due to your ignorance. At many cases the communication reduces to such an extent that, you never know that you are wrong until the very end, when things are irreversible.

Trust me on this one; twenty four hours are not less for a day. You are so focused at a certain task that you tend to forget, overlook, or even avoid the other tasks that are given to you or you are responsible for. The only solution here is to keep peace with your mind. You have to learn the art of channeling your mind at any and every task given to you. For example if you are working on a class project for three hours in a day, you should learn how to schedule your work in those three hours only. Once those three hours are over you should learn how to divert yourself into another task and channeling your mind there. This is important because in most cases when you are doing a task you still are physically present but mentally mental; mental because you are still constantly thinking about your previous task which you left. This could affect your performance, and in most cases it does.

Now the question is how one should make a healthy transition between one task and another. There are many simple solutions that are hard to implement. I still call them simple because they are simple to understand and hard because they are hard to get into your daily life. Reading a novel, always is an old school way of having a transition between any two phases. A good example would be, coming back from work and reading a Chicken Soup novel or any other of self choice and then spending time with your folks or spouse and later having a nice sleep. Once could also use music, either listen to or play some gentle music. A good example would be coming back from college and playing some guitar before you could start off your next task. This helps ease out all tensions and stress and prepares you for your next task. Sports also is an excellent alternative, however many have their reasons so as to why sports could not be an option that would opt for.

But in the end of the day any relaxant used to have a healthy transition between phases is your choice; all have their positives and negatives. So choose wisely, after all I can only show you the path; you have to walk through it.