A Moment of Choice

One thing I have learned about operating in better time management is the power of setting proper priorities. What do I mean by “proper” priorities? I mean those things that best align with your personal values, rather than something imposed on you from the outside. It’s easy for a whole bunch of other people to tell you what they think should be priority in your life, but there has to come a point where you take the time to do a “personal inventory” and find out for yourself what YOU deem to be the most valuable aspects of your life, and then set your schedule around those things. I have found that if you don’t take time off the top for the important things in life, there will be no time left at the bottom.I call this phenomenon “The Principle of Priority” . Not only does this principle apply in the arena of time management, but also in many other arenas of life…it’s true for money too. If you don’t begin to save money off the top (i.e., when you first get paid), before you even c...

One thing that you have to keep in mind when attempting to develop more effective time management skills is that your life is largely made up of your habits. There’s a famous quote--and forgive me for not knowing the author offhand--that says “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” True statement indeed. Beyond all the goal setting, productivity training, success affirmations, and time management techniques that you could gather up and accumulate, you must come to a place where you deal with the day-in, day-out grind of reining in your thought life. You see, your thoughts produce your emotions, and your emotions (more often than not) affect your decisions. Your decisions then determine your actions, and consistent actions will develop your habits. Your habits will eventually determine your character, and your character will ultimately determine your destiny. This is actually an inevitable fact, even though on the surface it may seem like a “lofty” explanation of how...

One of the most surprising revelations I have stumbled upon in my quest for greater personal productivity is the fact that the phrase “ time management ” is somewhat of a misnomer. What do I mean by that? Well, basically, there is no such thing as being able to “manage” time. Time is a constant, and time cannot be manipulated by any human being, no matter how much we may try (time machine, anyone?). There will always be 24 hours in a day. No matter how much we may wish to have 30 hours in a day (I know I’ve done that myself, so I can finally knock out everything I feel needs to be done), we are relegated to only 24. No man gets more hours in a day, and no man gets less. The big question is not so much how can we “manage” this constant called time, but rather how can we manage OURSELVES in light of the time we’ve been allotted. So in actuality, time management is actually self-management more than anything else. And the key to self-management is discipline. A Practical Definition of D...