Time Management And How It Can Help You

image source: https://www.digits.co.uk/ 

One of the most important skills that everyone needs to master in life is time management. Being able to effectively manage your time, your commitments and your tasks is going to be important forever. As an athlete, you have already been thrown into the deep end when it comes to learning time management. 

Many of you have school work, practice, workouts, games - oh, and a social life and now NIL opportunities and maybe even work to do outside of all that to pay your bills. With so much on your plate, it can feel like a lot. As you likely already know, it’s so important to understand how to manage your time. But how does the skill of time management actually benefit you? 

It Helps You Prioritize What Matters

Time management is key to prioritizing what's important. One of the first things that you learn is that you have to focus first on what matters most. For example, getting enough sleep may matter more than that extra credit assignment. Or, going to therapy may be more important than that career fair. Maybe for you it’s vice versa. Only you know what YOU need and how to best prioritize yourself and your time. 

It Helps You Stay Organized and Flexible 

When you effectively manage your time, you know what you need to get done and when you are going to get it done. This can help you be more flexible with your schedule too. If something comes up, you can look at your already managed schedule and see what needs to shift or be sacrificed to make room for this urgent priority. 

It Helps You Make Educated Decisions

Another important benefit of time management is that it can make your decisions easier. Who doesn’t want that? When you know what matters, what your schedule looks like and when you are going to get things done, you also know what you have space for in your life. This means you can more easily decide if a new opportunity or ask from someone else will fit in, or if it’s too much, too soon, or just not feasible.

It Helps You Stress Less

There’s no such thing as a perfect balance between your work and your personal life, but time management is the best tool you have in your toolbelt to create what works for you. When you have a schedule that fits with your needs, you can decrease your stress. Instead of worrying about how you’ll get through everything on your to-do list, you’ve identified what matters and when you’ll work on each priority. When you finish each day, you can spend less time worrying about how it will all get done and trust that you have a system that will help you stay on top of it all as best as you can. 

It Helps You Shine

As you think about the skills you learn from sports and how to best reflect your athlete experience, the skill of time management is one you definitely want to highlight. Time management can’t be taught quickly. You have to experience it and learn the ins and outs of sacrifice, prioritization, and flexibility. By showing you can stay on top of your priorities and identify what matters most, you are building a positive reputation that will follow you into future career and growth opportunities. 

Make sure you lean on that time management skill and figure out how it can help you thrive in life both in and out of the game. 

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