Tips on Activism, Volume I: Time Management

Hey All,

So this is going to be a new series featuring a collection of tips on activism to help readers become more effective and knowledgeable activists.

Pretty cool, right?

This series will be a compilation of real-world experience and ideas taken from interesting/relevant articles that I — and other contributors — come across to make activism more attainable!

This week’s tip is taken from this article written by the fabulous folks at NewOrganizing.com. They took the content from their friends at ManagementCenter.org and now we’re passing it on to you!

It’s about time management and will be super applicable, not only for those of us who are active activists, but also for those of us who are busy college students or human beings in general.

Their advice goes a little something like this:

In order to get anything done, it is important to sort through all possible tasks and pick out a few major goals or “big rocks” that you want to accomplish in a given day or week.

The next step necessitates breaking these “big rocks” down into more manageable pebbles that are clearly attainable. Staring huge issues in the face can be overwhelming and ultimately lead to inaction (every activist’s worst nightmare) so by breaking big tasks down into smaller, more achievable tasks, you better your chances at getting the larger task done!

Awesome!

The final step is simply putting these smaller tasks into action and scheduling time to get the work done.

The article suggests that we try to schedule “work blocks” that consolidate all planning/meeting activities to leave the maximum possible number of consecutive hours open in order to save time on transitions between tasks and facilitate getting real work done!

The article also warns readers that “work expands to fill the time you allow it”. Meaning that if you tell yourself that you have all day to complete a given task, it will take all day. However, if you set a deadline for yourself by which you HAVE to get the task done, the task will magically be achievable in a much shorter period of time.

The rest of the neworganizing.com article features more advice about staying organized in the organizing process.

It’s all good stuff, so check it out!!

Author