[Time-Management] Arise, awake and take charge!

 

1st June 2011

 

Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst. 

 

~Willaim Penn

I was thinking what it means to manage our life successfully. To write my book The Gift of Time, I interviewed over five hundred people who have succeeded in some way or other in their chosen fields. I would like to summarise the key points of what it means to `manage' time effectively:

 

  1. Actually there is no such thing as `managing time', since managing presupposes control and we have no control on time. What we mean by `time management' is managing the output per unit of time and not time itself.
  2. There is no such thing as `no time', since all of us have equal amount of this rare and scarce resource, irrespective of our social, racial or economic status. We can only say `I have no time for this activity'.
  3. Available time is different from productive time. Successful people make productive use of all available time, by carefully designing their appointments.
  4. Mission is different from goal; goal is different from task; task is different from activity and activity is different from time.
  5. Time frame means fixing a start time and end time for an activity and sticking to this time discipline.
  6. Time zone means having a fixed activity in a fixed span of time and avoiding interruptions.
  7. Setting correct priorities means knowing what is important and what is urgent. An important activity is related to goals, and an urgent activity is linked with time.
  8. An urgent activity will become more important with passage of time.
  9. We should apply the 80:20 rule to succeed in life. We should know that 80% of the result can be achieved by doing 20% of the activities. We should intelligently choose this 20% activity.
  10. We should identify and eliminate time wasters and fight procrastination. Procrastination is a thief of time.
  11. We should identify at least two breakthrough tasks in a year and concentrate on the same in addition to doing our daily routine activities.
  12. In order to focus on our important priorities, we should practice isolation and insulation.

 Make a checklist of the above and how many you practice and you would have mastered your time!

 

N C Sridharan

www.thetimefoundation.com

000

__._,_.___
Recent Activity:
MARKETPLACE

Stay on top of your group activity without leaving the page you're on - Get the Yahoo! Toolbar now.

Get great advice about dogs and cats. Visit the Dog & Cat Answers Center.

.

__,_._,___