Time: Our Most Valuable Personal Resource

Self-development expert Brian Tracy suggests, “Your greatest resource is your time.” One reason I think this is true was articulated by another respected expert, entrepreneur Jim Rohn, who wrote, “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”

The reality is we all get exactly 168 hours per week — nobody gets more than that (although sometimes we wish we did!). So, let's discuss time management, which can be defined as “the ability to use time to get things done when they should be done.” Managing our time well has many benefits, including:

• Completing our important tasks on time.
• Providing higher-quality work.
• Being more productive and efficient.
• Experiencing less stress and anxiety.
• Freeing up time for leisure and recreation, relationship building, and personal development.

Here’s the bottom line: When we manage our time well, we benefit — as do the people we serve and impact, including our team members who get our best effort.

Principles to Manage Our Time Well

What can we do to manage our time well? Here are principles to consider.

Related story: Problems Can Be Our Friends

1. Plan and Be Intentional

Henry David Thoreau said (and I agree), “It is not enough to be busy ... The question is: What are we busy about?” We make the most of our time when we intentionally plan on how we use it. Brian Tracy counsels, “Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000% return on energy.” Setting goals and specific targets can help guide us and maximize our accomplishments and success. One approach that I and others have used is to start each year with annual goals for us and our teams. We can then follow up throughout the year with updated monthly goals. Then, we can set weekly goals (task lists), ideally the Friday night before the week ahead. The final step is to have daily task lists, which we can develop at the end of the prior day.

2. Treat Our Time Like Money

Benjamin Franklin cut to the chase when he said, “Time is money.” A tool to manage our money is to have a budget, and we can budget our time too. We can budget the time for our most important tasks first, then fill in our schedules with other tasks we desire to complete. Also, just like we don't want to waste our money, we should avoid wasting time. Bruce Lee once said, “If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made of.”

3. Prioritize the Important Over the Urgent

As we get busier and our task lists grow, we can agonize or organize by prioritizing (I suggest the latter). Author Stephen Covey popularized his four-quadrant time management and prioritization model. His model helps categorize tasks based on urgency (requiring our attention now) and importance (valuable in the big picture and long term). To be most effective, we need to prioritize as follows:

• High Importance, High Urgency (Quadrant 1): Examples of quadrant 1 items are important deadlines and crisis events. Prioritize and do these tasks first.
• High Importance, Low Urgency (Quadrant 2): Examples include planning, relationship-building, and exercise (physical, mental, spiritual). Build time into your schedule to get these done.
• Low Importance, High Urgency (Quadrant 3): Examples include some texts, emails, phone calls, and postal mail. Find quick, efficient ways to address with minimal personal time and involvement. If possible, delegate them.
• Low Importance, Low Urgency (Quadrant 4): Examples may include social media, TV, emails, texts, and phone calls. We can eliminate some of these, delegate others, and use our non-prime time to deal with the rest.

4. Accept Our Limitations — We Can’t Have It All

Leadership expert John Maxwell offered this advice in Success magazine: “If you want to be successful as a person and a leader, you must make choices. You must narrow your list. You cannot have it all. No one can.” Having a thoughtful personal value system can help us determine between two good choices when we only have time to do one (e.g., choose to excel as a spouse over excelling at our golf game).

5. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

The best planners and time managers are proactive, not reactive. Being proactive involves intentionally planning and using our time to accomplish our top goals and priorities. The alternative is to be in a reactive mode, where circumstances and others drive what we do and how we spend our time.

6. Fight Procrastination

Procrastination is perhaps the major culprit for why people do not complete their work on time (I think we all battle this at times). Benjamin Franklin advised, “Never leave till tomorrow, which you can do today.” One technique to combat procrastination is to tackle the unpleasant parts of our daily task list first, then reward ourselves in some manner (e.g., take a break and walk around, have a quick snack, or peek at our favorite social media site).

7. Work Smarter, Not Harder

We all know people that really should be working harder to get more done and add more value. My guess is that you are not one of those — you already work hard. So, finding ways to work smarter is what you and I need to do. Ideas include reducing the time we spend doing Quadrant 3 and 4 activities, delegating when we can, getting better organized, and following the advice of marketing expert Dan Kennedy. He counsels, “Disciplined use of the time everybody else wastes can give you the edge.” For example, I just spent 90 minutes waiting to get some work done on my car. Instead of wasting time watching TV in the waiting area, I spent the time reading and preparing for future columns and university class lessons.

A big part of working smarter is to be well-organized. Tips include keeping a neat work area, using daily planners and calendars, having a system to organize and handle paper and emails, developing a workable filing system (and only filing papers and emails that we need for future reference), and whatever else works for us.

8. Reduce Time-Wasters and Distractions

Whether working in an office or working at home, the potential distractions and time-wasters are many. These may include phones, emails, social media, personal mail, and chatty coworkers. Part of the solution is to practice self-discipline, and take to heart the wisdom shared by author Alan Lakein, who said, “Time equals life; therefore waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life.” It is also helpful to have designated times to attend to phone messages, emails, personal mail, and the like.

9. Don’t Multi-Task

Some people encourage multitasking, but the reality is that it is counterproductive. The Latin writer Publilius Syrus wrote, “To do two things at once is to do neither.” Instead of getting many things done, we often end up getting nothing done. The best way to use our time is to tackle and complete one thing at a time, then jump to the next thing. The Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart reinforced this principle when he said, “The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time.”

10. Find Our Peak Performance Time

The most skilled time managers tackle their most difficult projects at the time of day when they are at their best. Some of us are at our peak performance early in the morning, others mid-morning, some later in the day. Another tip is to have short bursts (e.g., 20-40 minutes) of intense, focused effort to get a jumpstart on important tasks.

Motivational speaker Michael Altshuler said, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”

By applying proven time management principles, we can help ensure that our time doesn't just fly away, but is used to intentionally accomplish tasks and be successful.