Features
Time Management: an over-used, deceptive phrase
Posted on: April 12, 2007
By Alyson Carson
Anyone who uses the term “time-management” may be looking for a way to evade responsibility. It’s not about time management. Time moves on and doesn’t change course. It’s about self-management: productivity, result-generating activities, self-control.
Productivity
How many times do you check your email in a day? How many times do you really need to check your email? How many breaks do you take? How much time do you spend surfing the web? Bottom line, how much time do you waste every day? Productivity is about knowing what you want to achieve (the outcome you want) and how much of your time you spend getting closer to that objective. Brian Tracy calls it “intelligence.” I like to call it intelligent action. How do you keep yourself productive? Take responsibility for the results you get. Anything present in your reality is there because you brought it into your life. Own your mistakes, your success, your happiness. Take responsibility.
Result-generating activities
“That last section had nothing to do with me,” you may be saying. “I’m busy all the time; I never waste time.” Great! You are busy all the time! That doesn’t mean you are productive. What percentage of your actions are intelligent? What percentage of your actions bring the results you want? What percent of your activities bring any kind of positive results? If you have a goal, you have to do things that bring you closer to that goal every day. If you want to achieve something specific, you can’t just be busy doing whatever comes to you in the moment. You have to take specific action. You have to evaluate any goal and decide what needs to happen in order for you to achieve it. Then you have to keep on track, doing something every day to move you toward the completion of your goal. You have to do at least one intelligent action every day to move you toward your dream.
Self-Control
Now here’s the clincher: most likely you already know what you want and what you need to do to get there. The question is: how consistent are you in working toward that goal? The hardest thing you will ever do is keep yourself committed to something you’ve told yourself you would do. Why do we make a huge effort to keep our commitments to others, but we consistently let ourselves down? My guess is that 1) we don’t commit 100% to ourselves, and 2) we don’t exercise control over our actions. We don’t accept responsibility for our results. We would rather have short-term fun than long-term success and happiness. Self-control is how we get what we want. Self-control is how we manage our day, not time-management, or time-control.
Call to Action
What are you supposed to do after reading this? I’ll tell you.
- Take responsibility for your results in your personal and professional life. Stop blaming others for things that aren’t going right in your life.
- Use intelligent action. Know what you want and what it takes to get there, and then do something about it right away.
- Evaluate yourself constantly. Make a time log for yourself. For one week write down exactly what you spend your time doing every hour of the day, then evaluate how much of your time was spent intelligently.
- Form good work habits. If you catch yourself slipping back to how you used to do things, stop! Redirect yourself right then and there. Practice self-control.
- Reward yourself. Reward yourself for every little thing you do right. Stop rewarding things that you want to eliminate. Take some time and evaluate how you reward yourself for both intelligent and unintelligent actions. Eliminate rewarding unintelligent action. Eliminate rewarding intelligent actions with unintelligent actions.
Practice self-management; forget time-management. You are responsible for your results. Time marches on in an unwavering course. You are the one that wavers, not time. You cannot manage time (manage is just another way of saying control, and you cannot control time); you can only manage yourself. Be productive; use your time on things that bring the results that you want. Most of all, practice self-control. Work for the future rather than hoping what you want will somehow appear.
Alyson Carson is a small business coach who specializes in helping small business owners attain holistic wealth. She helps them thrive physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually as they obtain their monetary wealth. She can be reached at alyson@life-balance-institute.com. Her website is www.life-balance-institute.com.
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I’m wondering why this article is in Entertainment? Shouldn’t it be under local business dealings. This is a local comment, someone more important than those other people in Hollywood or Iraq.
Kris Day
— Kristine Day · Apr 27, 09:43 AM · #
Our features section used to be under living because much of the content was insightful but not quite news. When we changed it into the Entertainment section it was because it more of the articles had a humorous bent.
I think maybe you have a point and maybe this area needs to be under living again since this article definately could make life better for lots of us.
Let me know what you think and thanks for the comment.
— The Examiner · Apr 29, 12:29 PM · #