Proven time management strategies for people with disabilities

However, unlike the regular population, people with disabilities are found to need more time than necessary to accomplish tasks, given their physical impairments. Experts have provided proven time management strategies for all people to achieve personal effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.

There is a “growing epidemic of time famine.”, a researcher at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development had asserted. Time is an extremely vital resource for man. Time is money and perhaps has more worth. Yet, time remains one of the most critical non-renewable resources. Once lost, time is extremely hard—if not impossible-- to regain.

There’s a popular saying that goes thus: When you are too old to work and on the verge of dying, you will never lament what you did. You will regret the things that you did not do; things that you knew you could do but did not. Not many people want to live like that.

People with disabilities are found to need more time than necessary to accomplish a task. Researchers claim that people with disabilities would need five times the amount of time that it takes the non-disabled person to get a given task done. 

Unlike a regular individual, a blind person, for instance, would need extra help and support to get to a point; same for a physically-challenged person who relies on crutches or a wheelchair to achieve mobility. 

A deaf person will usually require a sign language interpreter to have access to information. All of this takes a fair amount of time—more time than is ordinarily necessary.

Everyone, including disabled and non-disabled, has got only twenty-four hours to achieve desired goals. 

We need time management skills. Knowledge of time management can help us to do more. We can do more with less.

What is time management?

Time management is the process of planning and having deliberate control over the sum of time that we spend on specific activities, particularly to make us more effective, efficient, and productive. Time management is a practice of banding tasks and responsibilities together with the finiteness of time.

Time management strategies

1. Goal-setting. Goal-setting is an essential strategy for managing our limited time and being on track with our responsibilities or tasks. Goal setting can be used to motivate ourselves to turn our vision of the future into reality.

Writing down short-term goals for what individual wishes to do and where they wish to be can help with managing time effectively. 

However, goals must be SMART. Goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound—SMART.

2. Long-term planning

The second time management strategy is long-term planning. This keeps one on the right path, that way, distractions can be done away with. For example, for advanced students, the busiest times when study schedules are being planned are necessary for long-term planning, that way, you can look long at the period before advent. This makes the setting of long-term goals effective.

3. Organizational skills

Organizational skills are effective time management tools. Highly organized people are said to be people who take responsibility for their limited time and have the ability to deal with stress very effectively. Organized people avoid physical and mental clutter. This can prevent an individual from overwhelming and stressful moments.

4. Create the right environment to work. Yours truly could never work in a sweaty environment. The work we do is hard, including writing and brainstorming and trying to formulate new ideas. The environment we work in can help with our overall productivity. There is no one-size-fit all regarding a work environment; individuals can pick what feels right for one. 

Experts advise we should our time productively by working in the right environment and prioritizing tasks. Minimize distractions by shutting off our phone and social media when necessary. It is important to be sure to follow a daily schedule that allows you to make the most out of each day.

5. Know what's important

To manage our time effectively, each of us has to have a clear picture of our principles and core values. It is important to invest the precious resource of our time in the things that are important to us. That may sound self-centered, but it's only self-centered if all of our core values are self-centered. We may consider using some of our time to help others---that is a good way to find ourselves, too, and manage our life more effectively. We may give our time to a worthy cause by providing a valuable service to the community, so doing our job well serves more than just ourselves. 

In a nutshell, effective time management doesn't mean doing more things or doing them more quickly. Effective time management means getting more of the important work done in a day. In fact, effective time management is even more important than efficient use of our time. Of course, the best time managers are both effective and efficient.