Time management seminars are big business at the moment. Time is after all the one product that we all want. Anyone that offers you
more of it at a price has a winner on his hand.
Throw in some fancy words and a killer personality and your charging thousands an hour telling business executives just how to eat their breakfast faster in the morning.
In the past however, there have been some pretty great quotes made on the subject by many great men. And the most shocking thing is, not one of the people that heard them say it had paid for the privilege.
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”
Henry David Thoreau
“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.”
Mary O’Connor
These are two of my favorite time management quotes as I feel that they really highlight the absurdity of judging the success of a day based upon the hours worked and not the work achieved within those hours. While many of us are not paid on a commission or productivity basis, almost nobody will gain promotions solely from clocking in on time every day.
There are many people who even pride themselves on looking busy at all times however results simply do not lie. If you want to get far in any career, you need to organize your time in such a way that gets results. You may even find that you’ll be more productive and less busy.
“To do two things at once is to do neither.”
Publius Syrus
“One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.”
Chinese Proverb
As you can probably tell from reading other articles on this site I am a serious non-believer in the advantages of multi tasking. A term thrown about in the nineties by men in shiny suits at productivity seminars, I find that its primary affect is to allow each activity to distract you from the other.
It also is a breeding ground for procrastination as one can constantly avoid doing difficult tasks by moving onto another more straightforward one.
I think that one of the easiest techniques to implement time management is to organise your day into a few set time activities each that involve a single task or body of work. When that’s the only job that you are allowed to work on, you are essentially forcing yourself to get real work done.
“Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.”
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
One of the most important aspects of effective time management is knowing when to quit. There is a big difference between moving onto something else and giving up and putting your feet up. Though the second option won’t get you far, not utilizing the first at many times can make progress impossible.
Basically do not waste your time on impossible tasks. Your goal is the result, think outside the box and you may find other ways of reaching it.
“Don’t start your day until you have it finished on paper first.”
-Jim Rohn
“Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal.”
- Elbert Hubbard
There are many lessons and principles within the genre of time management but none more vital than preventing yourself from running around in circles, working really hard and yet still missing deadlines. If you ignore all of the type and the fancy seminars, the one thing that you need to take is simply to organise your day-to-day activities via a list that has been developed with a single end goal in mind.
How many things do you do each day that do not really influence your overall career goals? The first time that you are honest about answering this question can be more valuable than any seminar.
“The great dividing line between success and failure can be expressed in five words; “I did not have time”.
Franklin Field