Role of time management and habit formation in education

 UzSWLU, foreign language and literature 1st faculty

Shukurilloyeva Lazzatoy Shamshodovna

Annotation: This scientific article presents information about ways of habit formation, time management,  punctuality and their role in education.

 Key words: speed age, time management, taylorism, polymath

        Living in the speed age is requiring us to manage our time more smartly than ever before.   Otherwise, we will end up getting chased by clocks. Unfortunately, many people in our distracting world are failing to shape that habit of punctuality.” Lost time is never found again” – says Benjamin Franklin—American polymath. Our future depends on what we do now. If we want it to be bright, starting from now we have to appreciate it and manage properly. As the lost time cannot be found we have to make use of that when we have.  The history of planning time goes back to very ancient times, over 1,500 years ago, human beings discovered many ways of managing time. It was the monks who used planning and strict schedules to boost productivity. Frederick Winslow is the person who has used the term “time management ” and considered to be the father of this field. His motto was: “Work smarter, not harder”. Thanks to his book “Principles of time management in 1911”, written with the association of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth people started thinking about the ways of doing things quickly and more productively. Taylor’s ideas are popular as Taylorism, and they are a crucial part of business administration.

      The world has seen many of such professionals since then. One of them is James Clear, who showed the importance of habit shaping in time management with obvious examples in his book, called “Atomic Habits”. He says that, habits ended by satisfying results are highly likely to be repeated over and over again. Vice versa goes with the ones started by unsatisfying results. James Clear states that, every human behavior experiences this process:

Try ➡ fail ➡ learn ➡ Try differently

Which means, when you try to do something or build a useful habit you might encounter failure at the start. Then you learn the effective and proven ways of doing that, which makes you try again but differently. Ultimately, you find a way to be an achiever, not a loser. You have to do, try, rest, do again, learn, do, but should never stop along the way. Moreover, you have to make it enjoyable and engaging for yourself so you keep up with the habit.

There are a lot of ways to do to be labeled as a productive person. You are supposed to manage not only time, but energy too. It works like a paradox as you manage your energy, you will get your time managed too. Imagine, you finished 20 projects in the morning within five hours, would you go for an 80 minute lecture at the university? “No” without a doubt, you are already run out of your energy. So you cannot have other tasks done in the next following hours of the day.

James Clear strongly states that consistency is a key to achieving any success at any age. So you are supposed to be disciplined first before being productive. If you want to change yourself, you cannot do that gradually but over time with practice and patience. However, the writer recommends changing the atmosphere you have, first. It’s really important when you want to be another, best version of yourself. It is, actually, scientifically proven that habits can easily be changed when you are in a new environment. It makes it easy to escape from the subtle triggers that motivate you to do your current habits again and again. It is very difficult to read books on the same couch where you are prone to surf the internet, or to choose healthy food when at the cafe where you eat only junk food. In such cases, new environments can help greatly to form a good habit without interruption.

The same goes for the study habits you want to build: completing assignments before deadlines, constant engagement when learning a new language, being on time for classes. All of these goals need a new environment to become your habit. If you want to be productive academically but always see yourself struggling to get up early because of staying up late it will be hard to be referred to as “early bird”. Proof of this point is made by— David Allen, whose version of the Two-Minute Rule states, “If it takes less than two minutes, then do it now.” This rule helps us to start, whatever the situation is, because our mind knows that we will be able to finish that process within 2 minutes only, then it can do whatever wants. In two minutes as you finish you get very happy because you finished one project successfully. That thing creates dopamine in your brain and pushes you to do another thing in this kind of quick way.

Waking up earlier in the morning, which is quite hard to do easily is a very great opportunity to use this method. When your clock alarms, you have to say yourself: if I cannot stop being sleepy even after washing my face I will sleep. This method makes our brain to be fooled, as you wash your face, you realize you could wake early as you wanted. It is highly unlikely that you sleep again after such a big achievement of the day. And James Clear’s “1% percent better” strategy can also be helpful in this case.

If you want to be perfect, you will not be able to reach that level overnight, but with consistency and practice, he says. If you want to be a morning person you cannot be an early bird the day after you want to be, but you have to start with small steps like getting up 30 minutes earlier than you usually wake. Then with 1% change within 1 week, or 1 month, you will get a lasting habit. If the vice versa goes with you, however, you’ll get 1% worse each day. This technique not only helps you to get up early but also to start your day with a fresh and amazing mood that will come in handy both in academic and social spheres.

     In management of time one of the most effective way is using “To-do lists”, as your mind feels itself organized. Once you finish doing things one by one you will put check marks next to them which makes you have a sense of accomplishment and makes you finish all the tasks on time. You can do that either in the traditional way (with pen and notebook) or with e-version of notebooks which are available in every smartphone, nowadays. This method not only helps you cope with all of the things you have to do throughout the day but also to balance your academic and social lives. As a student or employee, you might not spend a bunch of time with family members, who are a great source of stress relief.

Katherine Lee, an American poet, once said: “Quality family time is important for strengthening family bonds, improving self-esteem, creating happy memories, and reducing stress”. Balancing our day properly helps to have happiness, there will be no need to wait for some specific day to be happy but each minute will be significantly filled with joy and happiness once we start following this rule.

      Energy management is very crucial when productivity is concerned, which ultimately leads to solid success that lasts forever. Plus, it is a double-edged sword that works both positively and negatively. That is to say, if you allocate your fresh and full energy period to something that is beneficial to your overall health and life that makes you to be motivated. Unfortunately, if you spend them consciously or unconsciously in a bad way like, surfing the net, chatting with friends and such kind of bad habits that work against yourself, you will end up having a distracted lifestyle. All of these depend on you, you chose to be successful or failure in the end. Both of them contribute to your overall motivation of life.

      Time management, habits, punctuality, balancing day are all interconnected to each other. Once you possess strong habit of punctuality you can easily follow time management and  can successfully balance your day. To start building all of these habits one should change current environment and never stop trying. Balancing academic life and family times are really important factors to achieve success of any kind.

REFERENCES

1) “The history of time management” https://www.taylorintime.com/history-of-time-management/#:~:text=The%20History%20of%20Time%20Management%20Dates%20Back%20to%20the%20Late%201800s&text=But%20it%20wasn’t%20until,the%20father%20of%20scientific%20management.

2) “Atomic Habits” James Clear 2018

3)   “Two minute structures” https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating#:~:text=Read%20more%20here.,York%3A%20Penguin%2C%202015

4) “Importance of family time” https://www.jstor.org/stable/25684496