Time Is Money – Invest It
Standing on the top of
You can not manage time. It is a constant. It passes by, second by second, and nothing you can do will prevent this. Time is the great equalizer. No matter who you are, what your position, or how wealthy you become, you will still have the same amount of time each day, and that is the exact same amount of time everyone else has. It does not matter if you count it as twenty-four hours; one thousand, four hundred, and sixty minutes; or eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds, it is always going to be the same.
You can manage yourself, and that is what time management is really about. Managing yourself and the events that fill the hours you have is the basis for all of the time management books, tapes and courses out there. There are many strategies, techniques and tools to assist a person with this, but it still comes down to self-management. In Time Is Money: Save It, Lothar J. Seiwert describes self-management, “To self-manage means to effectively and consistently apply appropriate working techniques on a daily basis, in order to organize (“manage”) your life by using your time in the best possible way.” The principle of self-management is to consciously control your life and the events of your life rather than be controlled by your environment. An old sailors’ maxim states that, “it does not matter in what direction the wind blows, it matters how I set the sails.” This section will focus on strategies, techniques and tools to assist you in using your time effectively so that you can accomplish more of your goals, decrease stress, and have time to do some of those important and fun things that always seem to wind up in the “someday I’ll” category. Specifically, the section will address:
Time Logs
Planning
Prioritizing and Controlling Events
Time Tips
Time is Money – Invest It
Each of these areas will cover important principles to assist you in gaining mastery over each day. The more you use these principles, the more you will find yourself accomplishing and the more you will hear others say, “How do you find time to do everything?” You’ll be able to smile and say they have just as much time as you do, it’s all in how it’s used, or as sailors say, “it is all in the way you set your sail.”
The Time Log
In order to change your work habits and manage yourself better, you must first know where your time goes. You need to know the details of what you do and how you do it. In the classic book on time management, The Time Trap, Alec Mackenzie describes the importance of keeping a time log and how to keep one. At a minimum, you should keep a time log for three days. A week is preferred, since that will give you a more accurate accounting of how you are spending your time. During this time, maintain a scrupulously detailed accounting of all your activities.
Keep track of each activity as the day progresses and how long you spend at each. Every time you change tasks, or your attention shifts to something different, write down the new starting time and then how long you remain focused on the activity. Write down every different activity, no matter how trivial. In addition to each activity and how much time is spent on each, record the importance of each activity. Be specific and record everything. Do not generalize. Write down every little shift in attention and details regarding each thing you did during the day. Do it all day long and be totally honest to gain the most from this exercise. It may seem inconvenient, and it is, but the information you will gain regarding yourself will be well worth it.
After you have done this for a week, set aside some time to analyze your log. You will be able to identify problems related to the way you use your time. Be honest and assess how much time you spent on your priorities and how much time was spent on things that have nothing to do with those important things in your life. Were you following a plan, or drifting from one task to another with no clear objectives or direction? Were you doing things efficiently and effectively? Could some tasks have been done more quickly? Could some tasks have been done by others? Analyzing your time log will show you where you are now and help you identify areas where you can improve. In addition, the discipline of creating a log and writing things down forces you to be aware of what you are doing. The awareness often leads to focusing on priorities and working more effectively. It is a nice side benefit that automatically comes along with the creation of a time log.
Planning
Just as a map aids in staying on course during a journey, a plan keeps you on course during the day. Planning, or scheduling, your time is an important time management skill. Planning isn’t perfect, and often your schedule will become messed up due to unexpected events, things taking longer than anticipated, and countless other interruptions. However, the more you plan, the better you will become. As your planning skills increase, the accuracy of your schedules will improve and you will find yourself getting more and more done in the time you are allotted.
Planning your time, or making a schedule is different from writing a to-do list. Your schedule is your list with established time frames for each task. Your to-do list might look like this:
Do this month’s budget
Finish proposal for Client
Call and reserve concert tickets
Lunch meeting with mentor
Staff meeting with advertising staff
Attend parent teacher conference
Read three chapters of Time Management book
Study foreign language
Call John about Saturday’s basketball game
Stop at store for milk
Spend some time with kids
Balance check book
Many people think the above to-do list is a plan or schedule. They think that is all they need to organize their day and make the most use of their time. Often this kind of to-do list leads to unorganized scrambling and doing items that have low priority just to receive a couple checks on the list while top priority projects get lost in the hustle and bustle of the day. You end up wondering where your time went and why you didn’t get more accomplished. A plan or schedule places a time frame for your tasks. It looks more like this:
9:00-bed Relax some, read, communicate with spouse
There are obvious differences between a schedule and a to-do list. Which do you think will result in getting more done? Effective managers of themselves and how they use time realize that planning their time produces the greatest results. The above plan could be even more detailed. It could include the points to discuss during the meetings, what will be read during the reading time, and so forth. The important thing is to combine your to-do list with a workable time frame. You must make your schedule realistic and achievable. Do not leave your time to chance. It is too precious to let it drift aimlessly. Use a daily planner or organizational system that you can incorporate your activities with a time frame to complete them and your productivity will soar.
Obviously, creating a daily schedule is only one component of planning. Just as the fabled woodcutter spends time sharpening his saw or ax before chopping down a tree, planning your day, tasks, months, quarters, years, and life will help you achieve what you set out to do. Most people spend more time planning their vacation than they do planning their life. Maybe that’s why most people don’t rank with the super successful. Arnold Schwarzenegger exemplifies the American dream success story. It did not happen over night or by chance. Governor Schwarzenegger always had his master plan, and organized and planned his life accordingly. Through determination and planning, he has achieved phenomenal success. Create your own master plan and live your dreams.
Prioritizing and Controlling Events
There’s an old story about a teacher who brings out a jar and puts a number of larger rocks into the jar until it will not hold any more of the rocks. He then asked the class if the jar was full and the class replied that it was. He then proceeded to take smaller rocks and drop them in filling some of the cracks between the larger stones. He then asked the class if the jar was full. A little hesitant now, the class replied probably not. The teacher smiled and took out a bag of sand and poured it in around the small and large rocks. He then asked the class if it was full. Catching on, the class replied with a confident no. The teacher then produced a pitcher of water and poured water in until the jar was finally completely full. This story illustrates prioritizing perfectly. The large rocks are your highest priority items. If you do not put them in first, you will not get them in. It is easy to fill your day with water, or low priority tasks, and never get to the larger important things in your life. You must prioritize how you will spend your time and which things are the most important and then see to it that you do those items first.
Time Tips
There are many little ways to gain extra time for those things that are really important to you. Saving a minute here and a minute there produces hours for you to use toward those things that really matter. Here are ten time tips to help you save a few minutes here and there.
1. Make your workplace work. Purchase and organize the things you need to be efficient. Make things you need accessible. Configure your workspace and equipment so that you can use them with minimal time wasted getting to it, finding it, or traveling back and forth.
2. Make Shortcuts. Many of the things we do are tasks that are repeated over and over again. Creating shortcuts, such as a form letter on the computer, automated payments deducted from your paycheck or checking account, or anything else to reduce needless redundancy will save you hours each month.
3. Use things more than once or for more than one thing. In Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, Harvey Mackay states, “Never Give The Same Speech Once.” After putting time and energy into something, make sure you get all you can from it. Another example illustrating this principle is going out shopping. Why make a trip to one store for one item? Plan your trip to efficiently stop and get everything you need and use that trip for more than one thing.
4. Find Hidden Time. Make use of your downtime. Everyone ends up having downtime while waiting for airplanes, doctors, appointments and so forth. Use this time to catch up on your reading, to write a quick note to a friend or contact, edit a report you are working on, or as Don Aslett, author of over 40 books, does, work on future books.
5. Use your commute time. Many people spend considerable time commuting to and from work. Even fifteen minutes a day each way adds up. That’s 2 ½ hours a week, which is 125 hours a year in a fifty-work-week year. Many people spend considerably more time commuting. It is not unusual for people to spend an hour a day commuting each way. Use this time! Listen to educational and motivational tapes and CDs. Plan for your future. Use a speaker phone that can be operated safely and catch up on calls. Just do Something!
6. Do it now. Eliminate procrastination and get in the habit of doing tasks now. Do not over prepare because you do not really want to get started. Prepare as needed and then get with it. Often, it takes less time to finish something than it does to put it away and then get it back out to finish later. Do it now and get it finished.
7. Do what is worth doing. Do not do something just to be doing. If it is not worth doing, do not waste your time with it. Things not worth doing take time from things that are, so stop wasting time on these activities and do what is worth doing.
8. Recognize and avoid time thieves. Some people and activities drain your time without any real purpose or benefit. Do not let them. Recognize activities that steal your time and avoid them. These could be watching hours upon hours of television or surfing the web with no real purpose. People will try to steal your time as well. Recognize this and take steps to reduce or eliminate these time thieves.
9. Learn to say no. You cannot do it all. People and things will pull on you from every direction wanting your time. There are so many great causes out there, but there is no way you can give money and time to each of them. You must be able to say, “I’m sorry, I am not able to help you at this time.” You must prioritize and be able to say, “No.”
10.
Do it right the first time. Carpenters
like to say, “measure twice, cut once.”
Doing something over because it was not done correctly the first time is
a large waste of time. Do your
projects right the first time and you will save countless hours.
Right does not mean perfect. Many
things can be done “right” even when not “perfect.”
One additional
time tip is that of delegation. You
can not do it all. You must learn to
delegate so that you can spend time on what is important for you.
You can not just delegate, you must delegate effectively.
During episode one of season one, George pointed out that
Time is Money – Invest It
“Time is Money!” Trump barked at Kwame as they looked for Jessica Simpson during the final task of season one. In the business world, time does indeed equate to money. It is one of the most valuable resources we have. Looking at time as money is a valuable metaphor, because they both have extreme value and can be used in the same ways. Money is the means in which we provide for ourselves, our families, our businesses, and others through our gifts and charities. There are four primary things we can do with money. It can be spent, it can be saved, it can be invested, and it can be given away.
Time cannot be saved. It passes by, second by second, 1,460 minutes, each and every day. Once it is gone, you can never get it back. You have only three options for using the time you are given each day. You can spend it, you can give it away, and you can invest it. To spend money means to pay out money or give money for something in return. To give denotes that you do not expect anything in return. Investing is committing money in order to gain a financial return. Money can also be invested for returns other than money, it can be for some future advantage or benefit. Time follows the same guidelines. You can spend your time, often in manners that are not really giving you any future advantages or benefit, you can give your time away both for good causes and those that are a complete waste, and you can invest your time for future advantages and benefits.
Time is money – Invest it! You only have 1,460 minutes each day. Once passed, they are gone forever. Invest those minutes by using them for future advantage and benefits. Do not just give away and spend your time. You do not have time to do this. In Awaken The Giant Within, Anthony Robbins quotes Michael Landon after Landon learned of his cancer, “Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”
Remember, money is not the only goal of investing your time, though it will be one of them. Time invested in relationships makes them stronger and more enjoyable, therefore adding benefit and enrichment to your life. Time invested in learning new skills, obtaining new knowledge, and improving yourself will bring countless new opportunities and benefits. Time invested in exercise will improve your health and improve the quality of those minutes you have left. Exercise just might give you more minutes to use as well, by increasing your longevity. Time invested in recreational activities that really nurture your soul, reinvigorate your body and attitude, and reduce stress has multiple benefits and should never be neglected. Unfortunately, many people’s recreation is limited to slouching in front of a television set, mindlessly watching whatever happens to be on, without actually even liking the show, little lone gaining the benefits that enjoyable productive recreational activities can provide.
The bottom line is to start thinking of your time as the precious commodity it is. Time is money – so invest it. Invest it in those areas that produce the most benefit and lead toward living a full and enriched life. Stop just spending time, wasting time, and giving time away. Invest it!