Part 1
Self-Evaluation. Home Efficiency.
Brain Food. Your Life Goals. Don’t Forget Your Dreams. Your Work Goals. What’s Next? The Ideal Job. If Not Here, Then Where? Getting There. Balance.
For managers and small business owners, effective time management is not an abstract consideration. On the contrary, time management skills can be the difference between keeping a job and losing one, staying in business or closing up shop, frustration or fulfillment.
Because managers are responsible for managing others people’s time as well as their own, the impact of bad or good time management is immediately evident for them, every day.
I feel that the time has come for a book on time management that is written with managers in mind, does not waste the reader’s time, and marries inspiration with pragmatism. The book you are holding in your hands is the product of nearly four decades of management experience in numerous fields. It contains the distilled knowledge of many time management experts as well as my own experience and that of the managers whom I interviewed for this project.
UP AGAINST THE CLOCK: A MANAGER’S GUIDE TO TIME MANAGEMENT covers the essential gamut of time management wisdom, and provides useful information about attitude and self-evaluation, organizing a clear and streamlined workspace, running effective meetings, getting the best out of employees, and generally “greasing the wheels” of an optimally efficient work environment. One of my hopes for this book is that you might benefit from some of my own early mistakes.
The book’s purpose is to effectively double your time efficiency with tested and proven time-saving methods that apply to a variety of day-to-day situations. If the ideas presented in this book are practiced diligently, they will lead to success both on and off the job, including the achievement of overarching life goals.
You can use this book as a handy reference manual, a primer to be read straight through from start to finish, or both. It is also a workbook. As efficiency is a hallmark of time management, I have strived to be concise, and to keep the table of contents straightforward and simple. I think you will find it easy to adapt this book to your needs.
The time-saving techniques in this book will:
This book is for people who take time management seriously, and know that they need to take it seriously. Consider this book an amicable companion. If you like, read it cover to cover, but if it suits you instead to treat it as a reference guide, by all means please do. Many of the ideas in this book are universally applicable, but not all of them will fit your particular situation. Take what you find useful and adapt it to your needs.
Throughout the book you’ll be prompted to do a number of writing exercises, and to make various lists. The interactive assignments in this book are intended to help “concretize” the book’s ideas and, occasionally, to jog your creativity. Cognitive research has conclusively demonstrated that writing things down helps to sharpen thinking and illuminate issues at hand. I believe you will derive maximum benefit from this book if you take the time to do all or most of the exercises. (The last thing I would ever do is waste your time with useless busy work!) You may even want to repeat some of the exercises in six months or a year, depending on how valuable they prove for you, and if they lead to any useful changes in your work habits.
I also have a “secret agenda”: I hope that the concepts in this book will do more than improve your work efficiency; I hope they will ultimately provide you with enhanced fulfillment in your life. When you put down this book, I want you to be happier than you were before you picked it up. If that sounds overly ambitious (or, forgive me, grandiose) for a book on time management for managers, consider again that time is our most precious currency. How much is an hour worth? Or a day? Regardless of your hourly or yearly salary, the truest answer is that each day and each hour is priceless, and scarcely anything in this world will make you happier than the knowledge that you are putting your time to good use, that you are using your days and your hours well, that you are in control of your time — insofar as control is desirable and possible.
Introduction
“The secret of success is constancy of purpose.”
— DISRAELI
Time, time, time!!! Your success in life will largely be the result of how you organize and utilize your time.
There is so little of it, and yet we must make the most of it. It’s our most precious resource, but so few of us know how to use it wisely. Too few people realize that their spare time can be many times more valuable than gold.
EVERYONE gets 365 days a year, and 24 hours in each day which means that there are 1,440 minutes in a day, 168 hours in a week, and 8,760 hours in a year. If each week you work 40 hours, sleep 56 hours, eat for 21 hours, and devote 14 hours for recreation, you still have 37 hours to spare. What will you do with them?
Suppose you want to learn about a subject. If you spend 20 hours researching or studying, you’ll know more about that subject than most people. It’s also been said that if you spend one hour each day learning about a given company, you could be president of that company in five years’ time. So, simply put, today is yesterday’s plans put into action.
This book contains guidelines for using time well. With over 35 years of involvement with management and training I believe I have learned some things, and I want to tell you about them (though the telling will not take over 35 years!).
“It isn’t changing around from place to place that keeps you lively. It’s getting time on your side. Working with it, not against it.”
– URSULA LE GUIN (FROM THE DISPOSSESSED)
What does it mean to “get time on your side”?