Do you ever find yourself wondering how and why you haven’t accomplished anything yet you got to the office early and left late? This is a common scenario in any working environment.

To avoid this, you must understand the importance of scheduling your time properly, and to achieve this, there are steps to ensure that you prioritise important issues which will help you find time for other activities as well.

Scheduling means that one has the ability to overcome challenging situations by planning their activities such that they are able to complete all work according to their priorities, as well as within the available time limit.

Why it’s important

Mazen Halawyi, a businessman with a food enterprise in Kibagabaga, Kigali, believes that as a business person, you cannot manage your activities without scheduling, and this also applies in other areas.

Scheduling, he says, helps one to keep track of everything they are planning to undertake, and it determines what goals they wish to achieve over a particular time period.

To achieve a work-life balance, Halawyi says scheduling is the only way to succeed. "This will help an individual to avoid taking more workload than they can actually handle. And for this reason, it’s easier not only to complete all your essential tasks at a given time but also improve, helping you move towards the achievement of your career goals with time,” Halawyi says.

Scheduling is the art of planning your activities so that you can achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. When it’s done effectively, it helps you understand what you can realistically achieve with the time you have, says Francis Mwangi, an educator, and human resource worker.  

Mwangi says that with such skills, one can plan the utilisation of their time, thus helping them avoid the pressure and stress that comes with having too much to accomplish in a short period of time.

Ways to achieve this

From his experience as a human resource worker, Mwangi believes that scheduling skills should all start with establishing the time you want to make available for your work.

"Look at how much time you spend at work as this should reflect the design of your job and your personal goals in life,” he says.

In addition to this, Mwangi says that it’s also essential for one to keep updating their to-do list, as this is the very first step that helps you define as well as prioritise the things that you are required to do now and in the future.

"Once you have come up with what to do, decide when and within what time you are going to complete, as this will keep you from procrastinating,” he says.

The importance of scheduling In the article ‘Effective Scheduling:

Planning to Make the Best Use of Your Time’, when scheduling is done effectively, it helps you:

• Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time.

•Make sure you have enough time for essential tasks.

• Add contingency time for "the unexpected.”

• Avoid taking on more than you can handle.

• Work steadily toward your personal and career goals.

• Have enough time for family and friends, exercise, and hobbies.

• Achieve a good work-life balance.

Time is the one resource that we can’t buy, but we often waste it or use it ineffectively. Scheduling helps you think about what you want to achieve in a day, week, or month, and it keeps you on track to accomplish your goals, the aforementioned site states.