Sandra Felton - Ten Time Management Choices That Can Change Your Life

2009 by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims

Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com

Previously published under the title Organizing Your Day

Ebook original edition created 2011

Spire ebook edition created 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 978-1-58558-985-2

Each morning sees some task begun,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a nights repose.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Village Blacksmith

contents

We have discovered something we want to share with you: time management can be fun. Oh, maybe not birthday party fun or Disney World fun or winning-the-game fun. But nothing beats the satisfaction of coming to the end of the day and feeling it was successful. Thats real fun!

After we have a good time at Disney World, we come away saying, Disney did a good job. But when we come to the end of a satisfying day in which we accomplished significant things, we look back and say, I did a good job. In the long run, that feeling adds a lot more to life than a good vacation.

Sometimes we are admonished to remember that we are human beings, not human doings. But people are designed to be doers, to accomplish significant things during our time on earth. What we actually hate is to choke our lives up with low-priority activities that mean nothing at the end of the day. We recoil from wasting our lives on a myriad of things that have little or no significance in the long run.

One of the goals of this book is to help you accomplish easily and quickly those necessary but uninspiring activities that comprise much of our daily lives so you can turn your attention to the significant things you want to do. As you read and use the ideas in this book, you will begin to notice that piles of paper are no longer on your desk at work, and piles of clothes are slowly disappearing at home. The bills are getting paid. You are able to get home in the evening on time because you have eliminated time wasters at work. Somehow, when you manage your time, things that used to be neglected just get done.

Another goal is to help you turn your heart and mind to the excitement of discovering the things that are really important in your life and getting those done. For most people that will mean two things: deepening personal relationships with family and friends and accomplishing meaningful projects.

Some of us have a hard time creating and using systems. Either we dont have the skills to design a system or we design one that is so complicated we cant maintain it. In some cases, once we find a really good system, we have trouble being consistent. This is the reason we have boiled the secrets of successful time management down to the big ten we spotlight at the end of this introduction. Focus on these. Weave several into your life over a period of time and one day you will wake up and find your life has changed.

When you discover the power of managing what goes on in your daily life so that it works better than you ever thought possible, you may want to let out a little shout of joy. As your life becomes vigorous with significant accomplishments, you will feel a surge of enthusiasm.

But first, there are problems to be solved. The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right! was how Shakespeares Hamlet expressed his personal problem.

What has that to do with us? Hamlet has little to do with us, unless you are reading this book because you also have a problem with time that is out of joint and needs to be set right. Like him, you are the only one who can do what it takes to fix it.

This leads us to the twofold question of this book: Why are you (like many of us) having problems with time management and what can you do to change things for the better? In other words, how can you move from the dark clouds Hamlet was sitting under into the whoohoo! sunlight you are looking for?

When you finish this book, you will know these two things: how your time got out of joint and how to set it right. Once you have acted on what you know, we want to hear the shouting.

Let us hear from you. After you have read this book and made changes that benefit your life and the lives of those who matter to you, you want someone to know what you have done and to care. We care and would love to hear your good reports.

Contact Sandra at www.messies.com and/or Marsha at www.sortitout.net.

1 something strange
has happened to time

Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have. Spend it wisely.

Anonymous

If you think people in todays world have a unique problem with time, you are absolutely correct. While we were not paying attention, something happened. That something is progress. Modern advancement is like a wonderful train full of good things for our lives. It transports prosperity and convenience beyond the dreams of the past, and even beyond the reach of many in todays world, but it brings some baggage as well.

In his book Margin, Richard A. Swenson uses an enlightening illustration. Let us suppose that a five-hundred-car train were bound for a needy third world village, loaded with medicine, automobiles, libraries, food, recreational equipment, and a good supply of gold.

Scattered randomly among the five hundred cars, however, were fifty cars containing deadly viruses, pollutants, poisonous gases, illicit drugs, and nuclear weapons poised to explode if they were jostled.

Thats the way it is with modern progress. Some very good things have come our way, but unexpected problems have gotten into the mixamong them our problem with time.

Time got very much out of joint when technology entered modern life. The average American spends thirty-one and a half hours a week watching television (2006, Nielson). Yikes! Thats almost a second job. We spend more time commuting, since the automobile has made it possible to travel farther to work. The cell phone connects us to more and more people wherever we are, so we can talk many more hours. When modern household conveniences made cooking, cleaning, and laundry easier, women raised their standard of housekeeping and added other time-consuming pursuits as well. Life got less physical but more hectic.

In short, modern conveniences give us more options, more opportunities, and increased stimulation to participate in more activities. Thats good. But many activities are time wasters. Thats bad. It is such a good train, many of us have not realized that it has muddled up our lives in ways our grandpa did not have to worry about. People are feeling the pressure. As a result, an important concept is growing more and more important in modern lifetime management, which is really activity management, which actually boils down to self-management.

Our job in this book is to identify and derail the time management difficulties that got mixed in with the good life we have developed for ourselves. This book spotlights realistically the issues you and many people just like you face every day. As you read about people in real situations facing actual problems, you will begin to recognize the strategies you can apply to bring you real success both at home and on the job. As you read this book, spot your personal problems with time management so you can set about getting rid of them.