an unhurried look at time management

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"It's time for Time."John Lennon (as a cartoon character)in the movie Yellow Submarine (1968)

AN UNHURRIED LOOK AT TIME

MANAGEMENT 1995, 2011 by Grady McAllister. All Rights Reserved.

By Grady McAllister

Presented December 10, 1995

The University of HoustonCollege of Technology

This paper was written by Grady McAllister.It was completed as a researchproject for a class in Occupational Technology at the University of Houston. Theideas expressed do not represent the views of the University of Houston or theCollege of Technology.

This material is a presentation ofThe Vasthead.

"Get your attitude straight, 'Cos it's all in your mind

And it's never too late to get a new designAnd if you wanna compete you gotta visualize

Flash those teeth, come on open those eyes

Think visual!"

The Kinks, from the album, Think Visual(1986).

In today's competitive environment, there are all sorts of materials on how to be successful. Someare about visualizing your way to success. Some are about selling your way to success. Some areabout the body language of success. Some are about arguing your way to success. Some are aboutnetworking your way to success. Some are about dressing for success.

Some are about success in general.

Any material that takes an overall approach to success has something to say about timemanagement: It is only through time that any kind of success can be achieved.

In his book The 100% Solution, Mark McCormack points to excessive time with a newspaper as asymbol for all wasted time:

There are moments when all of us do the equivalent of scanning thenewspaper rather than create some news of our own. This could be timespent as a couch potato in front of the television, when blessed silencewould be more soothing or constructive. It could be a whole morningwaiting for someoneOr minutes wasted standing in line

We should ask ourselves whether better planning would cut back on thosehours that add up astonishingly. Remember, these moments are our "prime
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://vasthead.com/index.htmlhttp://kinks.it.rit.edu/cgi-bin/MusicSearch.cgi?song=regular/thinkvis/song-thinkvisualhttp://kinks.it.rit.edu/cgi-bin/MusicSearch.cgi?song=regular/thinkvis/song-thinkvisualhttp://vasthead.com/index.htmlhttp://kinks.it.rit.edu/cgi-bin/MusicSearch.cgi?song=regular/thinkvis/song-thinkvisualmailto:[email protected]


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time" that we can never recapture. And we have only ourselves to blame.

Robert Ringer, author of Million Dollar Habits, says:

I believe that the source of most peoples frustration is that there are only 24hours in a day, and we can never really seem to find the time to work on thereally important things, the things that take creativity.

Ringer advocates the "self-discipline" to devote at least four hours a day to "quite, creativethought." He tells people in any career to "learn to do it religiously if you aspire to rise abovemediocrity."

And then, there are the time management trainers. Rather than just a slice of advice, they offer anentire system to help capture time.

THE BUSINESS OF BUSY-NESS: THE GHOST OF

WORKPLACE PRESENT

When Alan Lakein published his classic book, How To Get Control Of Your Time and Your Life(1973), he claimed to operate "the only company in the country devoted exclusively to timemanagement." Nothing like that is true today. Time management experts are superabundant.

Recent time management authors Merrill and Donna Douglas have seen interest in their subjectswell as time itself seems to shrink:

Although time management has always been important, it is only in recent years thatlarge numbers of people have devoted much attention to it. Forty years ago there wereno books and only an occasional article. Even twenty years ago there were only two orthree books and a handful of articles. Few companies were teaching time management

in the 1970s. Now there are hundreds of books and thousands of articles, and everymajor company teaches it.

They suggest three reasons for the new interest:

Ever higher expectations on the job. "Very seldom do people report that this year theirorganization expects less of them than last year!"

A rising complexity in the work environment. Some of the elements are foreign competition,total quality management, self-directed work teams, and technology.

When the pace of change becomes greater than an individuals ability to cope with it,

problems develop. Most of these problems revolve around time issues.Because time management really means the control of events, it can be tied to many other

professional development topics. These include communications, mission statements, teambuilding, continuous learning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

In his discussion of time management, Mark McCormack says that decision-making has becomecaptive to todays rapid pace:

Slow decisions are usually better than fast ones. No decisions are better than wrongones.

The world prefers fast decisions to slow ones, wrong ones to none at allIn an

accelerated age, where people put a premium on speed and hyper-efficiencyyou haveto fight like mad against the impulse to rush a decision


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Unfortunately, a lot of people cant deal with thatAnd so they importune us for snapdecisions. They make us supply the answers as quickly as they ask the questions.

And that is a dangerous way to work.

High technology is one of the reasons for this rush to decide:

Word processors smother us with documents, seducing us into believing weare adequately informed. FAX machines make even the most trivial requestseem urgent. Overnight deliveries force us to respond in kind: We makedecisions overnight

McCormack believes that modern office technology may be "prodding us too quickly to makedecisions that need far more thought."

Sometimes people push up the pace just to appear busy. A. Roger Merrill, co-author of First ThingsFirst (1994), writes about an R&D division in which he was expected to teach time management.Before offering any training, Merrill did some analysis:

As I was escorted from one office to another, I became increasinglyintrigued to see the identical scene over and over again. In each office, asomewhat frazzled man or woman--one hand on the phone, another on thecomputer, desk literally piled with papers--would look and say, "just aminute! Ill be right with you."

After hurriedly completing some task or phone conversation, the personwould sigh, take a quick look at the clock, and push papers aside longenough to tell me how incredibly busy they were and how there was literallymore to do than could possibly be done.

When walking between offices, they rushed down the halls. They increasedtheir pace whenever they walked in front of someone elses door.

There was "a sense of gushing energy and panic everywhere." These people, Merrill decided, didnot want time management. The wanted to look overwhelmed. Their business was busy-ness.

Merrill returned to the manager of the division:

I said, "These people love urgency. Theyre out there trying to convinceeach other and themselves that they have more to do than anybody else. Thisis where theyre getting their security. Urgency dominates the culture. I

suspect that the real problem is that nobody really knows what the prioritiesare."

She sighed, "Thats right. Theres a big power struggle between the vice-presidents in terms of what R&D is supposed to do. Each one has afollowing. Frankly were at odds with each other. Theres not a clear set ofsignals. We dont know how long it's going to last, but one of these daysthings are going to come unglued."

The employees were keeping frantically busy in order to maintain their identity and security in theorganization. They wanted to seem as if they were really needed. Shortly thereafter, the big shakeup

came and many lost their jobs anyway. Merrill writes:

Before their reorganization we could have taught traditional time


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management till we were blue in the face. The core problem was a lack of ashared vision.

Whether or not it is always productive, the breakneck pace will only increase in the years ahead.

FUTURE SHOCK REVISITED:THE GHOST OF

WORKPLACE TO COME

David Ricardo (1772-1823) was one of the first economists to recognize that the time it takes tomake an item is an important part of its value. In Power Shift (1990), Alvin Toffler portrays a futurein which the value of time is far more critical than ever before. It is a world in which entire nationsare either "fast" or "slow":

Their pace is determined be the speed of transactions, the time needed tomake decisions, the speed with which new ideas are created in laboratories,the rate at which they are brought to market, the velocity of capital flows,and above all the speed with which data, information, and knowledge pulse

through the economic system.

According to Toffler, the rapid pace of the American economy is starting to bring back some jobsthat had been farmed out to slower, cheap labor countries: "These shifts can be traced, in part, to therising importance of time in economics." More than a matter of technology, home-based operationsincrease the speed with which decision can be implemented, controlled, and changed.

Time becomes a ghost in the economic machine, a spirit that feeds on itself:

In due course, the entire wealth creation cycle will be monitored as it happensmakingeach unit of time more valuable than the lasta positive feedback that accelerates theacceleration. The consequences of this, in turn, will not be merely evolutionary, butrevolutionary, because real-time work, management, and finance will be radicallydifferent from even todays most advanced methods.

BACK TO THE CANCELED FUTURE: THE GHOST OF

WORKPLACE PAST

Time, like a precious metal, seems to become more scarce even as it increases in value. For manyworkers, this can translate into longer days for smaller prizes.

A generation ago, the future seemed to offer something very different. Robert Half, founder of thepersonnel recruiting agency, Robert Half International, recalls that:

Back in the 1950's, when the economy was booming, housing was plentifuland cheap, and jobs were easily availablethere was a growing emphasison leisure time. It wasn't a negative thing; it didn't represent a generationlazier than the previous one. A recurring time management topic of that erawas what to do with the increasing abundance of leisure time that was sureto come. It was widely hoped that this new time ownership would meanmore time for intellectual growth and the betterment of society. The editorsof Life proclaimed that the United States was on the edge of "golden age" inwhich an American would be: Freer and bolder than the Greeks, more just

and powerful than the Romans, wiser than the Confucian, saner than theFrench, more responsible than the Victorian, and happier than all of themtogether.


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As late as 1967, expert testimony before a Senate subcommittee predicted that by 1985 we wouldbe able to choose between a 22-hour workweek, a 27-week work year, and retirement at age 38.

BACK TO REALITY

By 1989, the world looked very different. The paucity of time (the reality) had reached a point

where it rated a cover story in Time (the magazine). Nancy Gibbs wrote in the April 24 issue:

These are the days of the time famine. Time that once seemed free andelastic has grown tight and elusive, and so our measure of its worth hasdramatically changed. One of the factors cutting into free time was the needfor constant training and retraining: The pace of change and the explosionmean that professionals are swamped with too many facts to absorb.Meanwhile, the drill press operator discovers that the drill comes with acomputer attached to it. Workers find that it takes all of their energy toremain qualified for their jobs, much less acquire new skills that mightallow for a promotion.

According to Harvard economics professor Juliet B. Schor, "From the end of the 1960s to thepresent, Americans have increased the time spent at work by almost 160 hours--or nearly onemonth--per year. In The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (1992), Schorsays Americans work more hours than any other industrial country except Japan.

Even that difference, she says, is offset by the fact that Japans mostly male workers do nearly all oftheir work on the job and almost none in the home. The same can not be said of American workers,whether male or female.

Echoing Schors finding, a Lou Harris survey reports that leisure time has shrunk nearly 40 per centsince 1973. The average workweek has expanded from 40 to 47 hours, and in some professions 60

hour workweeks have become common.Ralph Keys, author of Timelock (1991), writes:

From telegrams to faxes, one technological innovation after another has metour demands for a faster tempo, then speeded it up some more. Labor-savingdevices eased the drudgery of our lives but added to the expense. So we

become two-paycheck families, work overtime, and moonlight.

Were time warriors who keep huge appointment calendarsbuy gadgetsthat promise to save us time, give up such activities as reading as luxuriesfrom the past, try to do everything just a bit faster and wonder why none of

the above seems to ease times crushing pressure.

THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT ORGANIZER

PART ONE: TIME IN A SEVEN-RING BINDER

In a quest to win back time, many people turn to time management tools to plan and record events.For pragmatic personalities, an organizer can seem like the perfect way to keep up with what to do,when to do it, and how to do it.

Steven Covey calls this the "Magic Tool Approach" to time management. In First Things Firsthewrites:The Magic Tool Approach is based on the assumption that the right tool (the right calendar,the right planner, the right computer program, the right handheld or laptop computer) will give us


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power to create quality in or lives. These tools typically help us keep track of priorities, organizetasks, and more easily access key information. The basic assumption is that systems and structurescan make us more effective.

Classy-looking leather planners have even become something of a status symbol--an indicator thatpeople are on the fast track and really have their act together.

According to Covey, there is much merit in the idea of using the right tool for the job. A tool canhelp you keep track of priorities, keep goals in front of you, organize tasks, and organize andquickly access information:

The sheer number of both paper-based and electronic tools on the market suggests that thisis a highly popular approach. Tools are a symbol of hope. Theres a sense of order thatcomes from having something in hand that suggests order. Theres a feeling of satisfaction inwriting things down, checking things off, keeping track of things in our lives.

Covey also points to some weaknesses in the "magic tool" approach. One is that it fails to considerthe "extrinsic realities that govern the quality of life." Another is that no tool or technology is asubstitute for "vision, judgment, creativity, character, or competence."

A person becomes like the frustrated photographer who believes that a highly programmed camerais necessary for a good photograph:

A great camera doesn't produce a great photographer. A great word processor doesn't make agreat poet. Neither will even a great organizer make a great life -- although a new planner ororganizer often carries such an implied promise. A good tool can enhance our ability tocreate quality of life, but it can never create it for us.

The printed organizers come in sizes ranging from pocket size to legal-page size. More and more anorganizer is a program for a personal computer or stand-alone digital device.

However, the typical organizer is a seven-ring binder with sheets that are half-letter size. The best

known organizers are the Day-Timer, the Day-Runner, and the Franklin Day Planner.Here are some elements that most organizers have in common:

A place for recording personal goals and goals with an organization.

A place to list all the tasks that need to be done.

This list includes actions that help achieve the goals. It is also a place holder for other tasks such asordering office supplies or cleaning out the garage. It can be written either as a single list or as aseparate list for each month.

Calendars for weekly, monthly, and long-term planning.

Most planning tools include one-page monthly calendars and additional one-page calendars forfuture years. The Steven CoveyFirst Things Firstsystem adds weekly calendars to encourageweekly planning.

Calendars for daily planning.

The daily calendar has separate places for tasks and appointments. In the appointment section, youwrite only items scheduled for a specific time. The task list is a place to write all the other actions

planned for the day. There can also be sections to record expenses and telephone calls.

A place for frequently used telephone numbers.

A way of organizing material according to the subject matter.

An organizer may include tabbed divider sheets. Users can assign tabs to subjects that meettheir specific needs. Examples include: values and goals lists, mission statements, ongoing

projects, hobbies, persons spoken to on a regular basis, agenda for meetings, and favoritequotations


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A system for recording and retrieving information.

Most daily planning pages include space for recording data received on that day.

A simple retrieval system is to attach a paper clip or Post-It to any page with importantinformation. Another method is to look at the monthly calendars to get back to information on adaily page.

A more comprehensive approach is to create a summary index: List each day of the month and writea key word for each item on that date. Some people keep a card catalogue that records all the dateswhen a subject appears.

Any tool is only a tool; it is not the actual control of events. Yet, probably more than any otherpeople in the world, Americans have always searched for methods to help assure success.

TIME CAPSULES FROM AMERICA'S PASTIn working toward his doctorate, Steven Covey conducted a systematic study of American success

literature since 1776. In The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People (1989) Covey writes:I began to feel more and more that much of the success literature of the past 50 years wassuperficial. It was filled with social image consciousness, techniques and quick fixes

In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years focused on what could be called theCharacter Ethic as the foundation of success --things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance,courage, justice, patience, simplicity, modesty and the Golden Rule

But shortly after World War I the basic view of success shifted from the Character Ethic to what wemight call thePersonality Ethic.

This Personality Ethic appeared in two forms: One was human and public relations techniques, and

the other was positive mental attitude (PMA). Some of this was expressed in inspiring andsometimes valid maxims such as "Your attitude determines your altitude"

Other parts of the personality approach were clearly manipulative, even deceptive, encouragingpeople to use techniques to get other people to like them, or to fake interest in the hobbies of othersto get out of them what they wanted, or to use the "power look," or to intimidate their way throughlife

The basic thrust of this literature was "quick-fix influence techniques, power strategies,communications skills, and positive attitudes."

A BOOK OF VIRTUESOne example of the early character-based advice is Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. In it,Franklin describes his thirteen "virtues," values that he worked to establish as permanent habits inhis life:

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to Dullness. Drink not to Elevation.

2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or your self. Avoid trifling Conversation.

3. ORDER. Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.

4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY. Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e., Waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY. Lose no Time. Be always employ'd in something useful.--Cut off all unnecessaryActions.--


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7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speakaccordingly.

8. JUSTICE. Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.

9. MODERATION. Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Cloaths or Habitation.

11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or theInjury or your own or another's Peace or Reputation.

13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin explains how he endeavored to make each virtue a reality:

I judg'd it would be well not to distract my Attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix iton one of them at a time, and when I should be Master of that, then to proceed to another, and so ontill I should have gone thro' the thirteen.

Franklin produced a book that contained a page for each virtue. At the top of each page was itsname and its clarifying statement.

He divided each page into rows and columns. Along the left side of the page, he listed all thirteenvirtues. Along the top, he wrote the days of the week. This layout created boxes for each virtueunder each day of the week.

He put a black dot in a box for each time he violated a virtue, but he put his main effort on onevirtue at a time:

I determined to give a Week's strict Attention to each of the Virtues successively. Thusin the first Week my great Guard was to avoid every the least Offense against

Temperance, leaving my other Virtues to their ordinary Chance, only marking everyEvening the Faults of the Day.

To help satisfy his desire for "Order," he created a schedule for all of his regular activities. Franklinadmits that he had trouble actually following his schedule. His reason is one that most people couldrelate to today: "tho' it might be practicable where a Man's Business was such as to leave him theDisposition of his Time" it became difficult when someone "must mix with the World, and oftenreceive People of Business at their own Hours."

American literature also offers example of people who try to plan their day--often with ironicresults.

We find two examples in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby (1925). Gatsby is an ambitiousentrepreneur who has quickly made a fortune as a bootlegger. He buys a mansion on Long Island tobe close to a former lover, Daisy. She is a society woman who has since married a rich husband,Tom Buchanan.

Meanwhile, Tom has acquired a mistress, Myrtle Wilson. In a scene early in the novel, Myrtle listsher planned activities:

Im going to make a list of all the things I've got to get. A massage and a wave, and a collar for thedog, and one of those cute little ash trays where you touch a spring, and a wreath with a black silk

bow for mothers grave thatll last all summer. Ive got to write down a list so I wont forget all thethings Ive got to do.When Daisy accidentally kills Myrtle in a hit-and-run accident, Tom convinces

her husband that Gatsby was the driver. The husband kills Gatsby before taking his own life.Although Gatsby had conducted lavish parties, involving hundreds of revelers, only two appear forhis funeral. Gatsbys father, Mr. Gatz, arrives shortly before the burial. Gatz is met by Nick


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Caraway who serves as narrator in the novel.

Mr. Gatz shows Carraway a book which Gatsby had owned as a boy. It includes a daily schedulewith an exact time for such activities as "practice elocution, poise and how to attain it," and "studyneeded inventions." It also includes a list of goals ("resolves") such as "bath every other day" and"read one improving book or magazine per week."

Caraway describes the scene this way:"I just come across this book by accident," said the old man. "It just shows you, dont it? . . .Jimmywas bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something."

He was reluctant to close the book, reading each item aloud and then looking eagerly at me. I thinkhe rather expected me to copy down the list for my own use.

During the climax of his novel, The House of the Seven Gables (1851) Nathaniel Hawthornecontrasts a characters written plan for a day with what actually occurs.

In a prologue to the story, Hawthorne describes how Colonel Pyncheon, a Puritan leader in colonialSalem, Massachusetts, had erected the House of the Seven Gables. The Colonel acquired the land

by having the original owner, Matthew Maule, tried and hanged for witchcraft. The wizard aimsthese last words at the Colonel: "God will give him blood to drink!"

The Colonel builds his mansion on Maules property and schedules a grand reception. When theColonel fails to appear, his guests find him seated in his chair with blood on his beard--dead at themoment of his greatest triumph.

Nearly 200 years later, one of the colonels descendants, Judge Jeffrey Pyncheon, sits in the verysame chair in the very same house. He is like the original patriarch in appearance, temperament, andambition.

The judge is waiting to speak to his cousin Clifford. The cousin has just emerged from prison,having served 30 years for a murder he did not commit. The judge, who played a role in Cliffords

confinement, hopes to blackmail him for information on a vast tract of land. Should Clifford fail toprovide the information, the judge will have him declared a lunatic and put him away for a secondtime.

The judge allots only 30 minute for his business with Clifford. Using a very simple timemanagement tool, a list on the back of one of his business cards, the judge has planned manyactivities for the day.

Yet, two hours pass and the judge continues to wait in the ancestral chair. In his narrative,Hawthorne chides the normally punctual judge for his sudden "sluggishness":

Half an hour? Why, judge, it is already two hours, by your own undeviating chronometer! Glance

down your eye at it, and see. Ah; he will not give himself the trouble to bend his head, or elevate hishand, so as to bring the faithful timekeeper within his range of vision. Time, all at once, appears tohave become a matter of no moment with the Judge! And has he forgotten all the other items of hismemoranda?The judge is dead, struck down by same mysterious ailment that has killed several ofhis ancestors. Clifford, finding the body, has fled the house, leaving the judge as its only occupant.

As the time of day progresses, the narrative details each action that the judge had planned. Eachitem is sardonically described as if he was still capable of accomplishing it. The list includes buyinga new horse, visiting his doctor, replacing a broken gravestone for his late wife ("better, at least,than if she had never needed any!"), and attending a banquet at which he is to be hand-picked as thenext governor.

With macabre irony, the author exhorts him again and again to rise up and attend to his schedule. Asthe judge continues his silent vigil, the day fades into night and the night fades into the followingday. The morning reveals a fly buzzing around the judges open eyes. Hawthorne concludes:Canst


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thou not brush the fly away? Art thou too sluggish? Thou man, that hadst so many busy projectsyesterday! Art thou too weak that wast so powerful? Not brush away a fly! Nay, then, we give theeup!

It would be hard to find a clearer example of how far real events can veer away from a writtenschedule. Stories like these also show that it is hard to control events when someone has his valuesout of alignment with reality. An emphasis on values and principles has been the main contribution

of recent time management systems.

CHARLES R. HOBBS: THE PYRAMID PRINCIPLE

Charles R. Hobbs is the most influential time management trainer of recent decades. Yet little has

been written about him on the web. The following paragraphs will help to address that gap.

Charles R. Hobbs helped popularize value-based time management training, and many subsequentprograms build upon ideas that Hobbs first developed.

Hobbs received his doctorate from Teachers college at Columbia University. In 1974, he left his

position as Associate Director of the Teacher Development Program and spent the next eighteenmonths developing his Time Power system. Hobbs sees his curriculum as the logical outgrowth ofhis "life career question": "How can a teacher bring about change in the lives of people throughgroup instruction?"

Hobbs decided that existing time management training was "mechanical and disconnected." Hobbswrites:

The ideas they taught were not interrelated into a cohesive system. The humanness ofthe people was casually traded for ploys to "get the job done," and the jobs that were

being done were too-often low yielding activities draped in the cloak of screamingurgency; impulses, not priorities.

He wanted a system that would "help the student attain measurable increases in his personalproductivity at work while maintaining a balanced personal life perspective."

Hobbs says thatTime Powercauses "permanent change" in people because it builds the "continuityof experience" advocated by John Dewey, the educator and philosopher: Dewey proposed that eachexperience builds on what has gone before and modifies the quality of what comes after. It came tome that the planning of goals in light of ones total experience calls for the same kind of continuity.The key, Hobbs decided, was to tie together each individuals personal values, goals, and daily

planning into one continuous system.

Hobbs says you should determine what ideas make up your personal value system and write each of

them as an action statement. These are very general statements that represent the "highest prioritiesin life." Hobbs calls these statements "unifying principles." They can form the basis for settinggoals and making other decisions.

Examples include: Commit to a more excellent way. Earn the good will of others. Be honest. Be aleader. Believe in people. Grow intellectually. Have personal integrity. Hobbs states:

There is a reality that few people recognize. An individual can not effectively managetime without personal congruity, and congruity is not possible without clearly definedvalues that are brought under control in personal thought and performance.Hobbsdefines congruity as "experiencing balance, harmony, and appropriateness with eventsin your life."

Incongruity is "tinkering with tantalizing trivialities." You can achieve "self-unification" when thereis congruity between your value system and actual performance. According to Hobbs: As you form
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a congruity between what you believe to be right and how you perform, you will experience thehighest form of self-actualization.Hobbs says he is not trying to impose any particular value system.The purpose of his program is to reach all persons no matter where they are "coming from."

Religious persons would go to the inspirational literature of their religions to help them form theirunifying principles. Hobbs says many secular sources, such as Shakespeare and other classicliterature, may also include the "highest truths." Hobbs found his own best treatment of "humility"

in Chaucers Canterbury Tales . He also recommends biographies for generating ideas on unifyingprinciples. He advises against relying on the field of psychology, since much of it is "theory" thathas not yet "stood the test of time."

All other goals build on these "unifying principles." From that point, planning goes to goals that areincreasingly specific. Long-range goals build upon the unifying principles. Intermediate goals buildupon the long-range goals. Daily goals include actions that help achieve the intermediate goals.

Hobbs calls this the "productivity pyramid." It is illustrated as a pyramid with the unifyingprinciples at the base and daily actions at the top.

Hobbs recommends a 15-minute planning session every day to maintain continuity in the planning

process.The daily plan, goals, and unifying principles all go into a Day-Timer organizer. The format herecommends has a two-page spread for each day of the month. Available from Day-Timers, Inc., inAllentown, Pennsylvania, they come in sizes ranging from pocket-size to full letter-size.

Regardless of the size selected, Hobbs says you must carry the Day-Timer everywhere you go. Theidea is to keep all of planning materials constantly available and to have a place to write incomingdata. You must limit yourself to only one Day-Timer: If you use more than one, youll be "flitting

back and forth" between them trying to find information.

The use of the Day-Timer builds upon Hobbs "theory of accessibility," developed in his doctoraldissertation at Columbia University. The theory states: "If a goal is meaningfully, directly, andcontinually visible, your chances of achieving it increase." By keeping their values, goals, and

planning in the Day-Timer, people will be more likely to perform in the ways they had intended.

The system includes a series of questions to help select and prioritize the unifying principles,personal life goals, goals with an organization, and items on a daily action list.

Time Power also includes "productivity goals." These are ongoing goals that emphasize timemanagement itself. Their purpose is to help keep people focused on the need for time managementand to help them succeed with the system.

Here are some examples of productivity goals:

Do the most vital task now.

Limit TV programs to the vital few--if any.

Be sensitive to the vital priorities of others.

Clean my desk every afternoon before leaving work.

Never seek a solution to a problem until it is clearly defined.

When talking with someone, take 100% of the responsibility for seeing that communicationis achieved.

Never say in 100 words what can be better said in ten.

Hobbs suggests that you place a list of productivity goals in the Day-Timer and re-write two orthree of them on each daily action list.


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HYRUM SMITH:

INTIMIDATE THY NEIGHBOR

Day-Timers now down-plays Time Power in favor of its new 4-D program. They no longer offerHobbs tapes to the public.

However, the Franklin Quest Company in Salt Lake City offers a remarkably similar program. Thecompany CEO Hyrum Smith has written two books and recorded several audio cassettes thatcapture his TimeQuest seminar. Like Time Power, he bases his program on a "productivity

pyramid." The seminar parallels many of Hobbs key points and uses many of the same anecdotesand illustrations.

Franklin Quest offers the Day Planner, an organizer comparable to the Day-Timer Two-Page-Per-Day Reference Edition.

Less academic than Hobbs, Smith can often turn a phrase in a way likely to be remembered. Hereare a few of Smiths observations:

On "not having enough time ":

I f you called me on the phone today and said, "Hyrum, Id like you to have dinner with metonight," and I answered, "Sorry, I would really like to have dinner with you tonight but I just donthave the time," I would be lying. What I am really saying is: "I value some other event more thanhaving dinner with you." Why dont I just come out and say that? Well, its culturally okay to say "Idont have the time." Its notculturally okay to say, "I value another event more than having dinnerwith you--so Im not going!"

On having an unclear job definition:

Its like speeding down the highway and running into a fog bank.

On the need for daily planning:If there is anythingthat I could get you to doit would be to spend ten to fifteenminutes each morning planning your day. If I could get you to do that, youd not onlyscare yourself, youd intimidate everybody on your block.

On the feeling created by a crossing a task off a list:

Suppose you accomplish a task that was not on your "to do" list. What do you do? Youadd it on and cross it off. It feels terrific doesn't it?Do you know why it feels terrific?Theyve discovered that when you accomplish a task and cross it off, your brain

produces a chemical called endorphin that causes you to experience a euphoric high

similar to the effect of taking morphine.

Hyrum Smith recalls a conversation that illustrates his retrieval system with the Franklin DayPlanner: Early one morning, Smith is planning his day. A note on his daily task list tells him that heneeds to call someone named "Bill." He doesn't remember the man at all.

The note refers him to a page four months earlier. That page tells him that the man is a prospect forhis seminar and gives some details about their discussion. Smith is now ready to speak intelligentlywith someone whom he did not ever remember just a few minutes earlier. The time is 5:30 A.M.,Salt Lake City time. The conversation goes like this:

Hyrum: Good morning, Bill, this is Hyrum Smith. What time is it now in New York?

Bill: Damn.

Hyrum: You may recall we had a conversation on January 14 at 4:30 in the afternoon. We spent


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twelve minutes on the phone. Do you remember that conversation?

Bill: Damn.

Like Hobbs, Smith tells people to carry their organizer everywhere. In his book, The Ten NaturalLaws of Successful Time and Management(1994), he writes:

If you dont have it with you, youll end up writing things on scraps of paper and becoming

disorganized. And since you will put everything that relates to your values, goals, and daily task listin this tool, you need it with you almost always. I have people ask me all the time, "Hyrum, if thisthings so important, what happens if I lose it?" I just tell them, "Listen, if you lose this thing, youmay as well jump from a tall building, because its all over." Of course, Im just kiddingIn hisseminar recording, he answers even more succinctly: "The answer is: You dont lose it."

For people who wont carry the Franklin Day Planner everywhere, the company offers "satellite"filler pages. These are pocket-sized sheets that can be added later to the main organizer book.

The Day Planner comes with divider sheets. Printed tabs create sections for addresses and telephonenumbers, values and goals, finances, key personal information, reference materials, and long-term

planning. There are also six numbered tabs for tracking specific people and projects.

Despite the light-hearted tone of the program, Smith adds just enough philosophy to put all in ameaningful context. Toward the end of the seminar, he gives his personal definition of "character."It is "the ability to carry out a worthy decision after the emotion of making that decision has

passed."

He asks the participants to give the program a "serious shot" for 21 days. If they will, he promises"a major reduction in stress." You reduce stress, he says, as you gain a greater sense of control.

Smith gives the participants an assignment. Using the Day Planner, they must schedule a letter thatthey will write to him 21 days later. At that time, they will report how they are doing with theirorganizer and with their productivity pyramid.

Smith says, "We have a whole division of people who do nothing but respond to these letters." Hepersonally sees many of the letters and finds it "wonderful to see what has happened in peopleslives in that short 21 day period. It is almost scary."

According to Smith, the key to their success is the time spent on the productivity pyramid:Buildingthis pyramid is the single toughest thing you have ever done. There will be a temptation as surely asyou sit there not to build the pyramidIf there is a gap between what you value and what youredoing, there will be pain. The only way to get rid of the pain is to bring in line what you do withwhat you value.

Smith concludes with a poem by an unknown author. At least 100 years old, the words appear on asundial at Wellesley College:

The shadow by my finger cast,Divides the future from the past.

Behind its unreturning line,The vanished hour, no longer thine.

Before it lies the unknown hour,In darkness and beyond thine power.

One hour alone is in thine hands,The now on which the shadow stands.


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STEVEN R. COVEY:

THE PRINCIPLE OF PRINCIPLES

During the aftermath of the Democratic Party election defeats of 1994, Steven R. Covey visitedPresident Bill Clinton at Camp David. On the PBS television program, The McLaughlin Group ,host John McLaughlin showed a video clip of the meeting and asked his panelists to comment.

The participants are print media writers who represent a variety of political viewpoints. They tendto disagree often and very loudly.

Yet, on the subject of Coveys visit their opinion was unanimous: The fact that Clinton would turnto a motivational "guru" was a sign of desperation. The session with Covey had lowered the

presidents stock for the week.

To further the derision, McLaughlin juxtaposed the Covey shot with one of Anthony Robinswalking on hot coals. While still in his twenties, Robins achieved fame as the motivational "boywonder" for his Unlimited Powerbook and tapes.

Covey--Robins--it was all the same thing to the McLaughlin commentators. It was all so much"snake oil."

It is not just cynical reporters who question the self-improvement movement. As the recent FAAtraining scandals have shown, the push to reform people can turn into indoctrination and even

brainwashing.

Sometimes organizations force-feed ideas that may or may not be popular.

In Coveys case, Harvard Professor Ronald A. Heifetz sees a "kind of maladaptive response" in hispopularity. "Theres something real about the yearning" that his work brings out. "The question iswhether people are doing the right thing to satisfy it."

Fortune magazine summed up Coveys critics:

The problem, they say, lies in the message that is being subsidized by management: that individualworkers are responsible for their own destinies, and that the way to achieve security and serenity isthrough continual self-improvement. For a big corporation that is mowing down whole suitefuls ofmiddle managers, critics say, this can be a handy way to get employees to start thinking that if theyare laid off, the fault lies somewhere in themselves.More bluntly, economist Jeremy Rifkin says:"Youre setting up the psychological conditions for people to accept just-in-time employment."

Obviously, there are few motivational speakers who see themselves in such sinister terms. However,even when viewed in their most favorable light, motivational materials seem to reach a point ofdiminishing returns. They start to repeat the same stories and oft-heard quotations. They generate alimited range of intellectual challenges.

Yet some motivational wares outlast all expectations. Dale Carnegies book,How To Win Friendsand Influence People (1936), was derided in its time, and its title is still a running joke among some

people. Nonetheless, it continues to sell forty years after the authors death. Carnegie is also astandard for comparing new self-help authors.


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So it was no small endorsement when USA Today called Covey "the hottest self-improvementconsultant to hit U.S. business since Dale Carnegie."

No doubt Steven Covey is in vogue. He has madePeople magazine. Their editors remarked thatCoveys maxims "sound like Gump with an MBA. But their bite-size simplicity, as well as theiremphasis on principled behavior, is part of the draw."

And he draws many kinds of people. In the bookstore, Coveys books sit near the ones about "re-engineering" and "reinventing" corporations. Browsers also find them in the "self-help" section near101 Lies Men Tell Women.

The Covey phenomenon began in 1989 with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It wasquickly followed byPrinciple-Centered Leadership . Coveys latest book,First Things First, looksat the management of time. Each of the books is available on audio cassette. The Seven Habits has

been recorded in Spanish. There is even a Seven Habits screen saver; it allows Coveys maxims toflash on a computer monitor all day long.

In short, Covey is one of the most successful authors of all time. To understand Covey inperspective, it may be helpful to look at all three books.

Briefly, here are Coveys Seven Habits :

Habit One:Be Proactive . Take the initiative and choose your own response.

Habit Two:Begin with the End in Mind. Covey states, "If you are the programmer, write theprogram. Decide what youre going to do with the time, talent, and tools you have to work with"

Habit Three:Put First Things First. This is the "endowment of willpower." Covey explains:

At the low end of the continuum is the ineffective, flaky life of floating and coasting, avoidingresponsibility and taking the easy way out, exercising little initiative or willpower. And at the topend is a highly disciplined life that focuses heavily on the highly important but not necessarilyurgent activities of life. Its a life of leverage and influence.

Habit 4: Think Win/Win. This is the "endowment of the abundance mentalityYou go from ascarcity to an abundance mentality through intrinsic self-worth and a benevolent desire for mutual

benefit."

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood:

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent toreply. Theyre either speaking or preparing to speak. Theyre filtering everythingthrough their own paradigms, reading their autobiography into other peoples lives.

Habit 6: Synergize. "The essence of synergy is to value differences--to respect them, to build on

strengths, to compensate for weaknesses."Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw . This habit is to beef up your "PC" or "production capability." It means"renewing the four dimensions of your nature--physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional." Itincludes things like reading and exercise.

InPrinciple-Centered Leadership, Covey tells how to make principles the foundation for leadinggroups and organizations. He says these are absolute laws that govern people:Our effectiveness is

predicated upon certain inviolate principles--natural laws in the human dimension that are just asreal, just as unchanging, as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension. These principles arewoven into the fabric of every civilized society and constitute the roots of every family andinstitution that has endured and prospered.

These principles are not invented by us or by society; they are the laws of the universe that pertainto human relationships and human organizations. They are part of the human condition,consciousness, and conscience. To the degree people recognize and live in harmony with such basic


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principles as fairness, equity, justice, integrity, honesty, and trust, they move toward either survivaland stability on the one hand or disintegration and destruction on the other.

Charles Hobbs and Hyrum Smith tell people to make decisions according to their value systems.Covey, however, draws a distinction between values and principles. InPrinciple-Centered

Leadership , Covey tells this story to make his point: When I was in New York recently, I witnesseda mugging skillfully executed by a street gang. Ive sure that the members of this gang have their

street maps, their common values--the highest value being, "Dont fink or squeal on each other, betrue and loyal to each other"--but this value, as it is represented by the gang, does not represent"true north," the magnetic principle of respect for people and property. These "true north principles"are "like compasses." They always point the way in every situation.

They provide vision and direction for groups of people. With leadership based on principles, groupsdiscover long-term solutions to their problems. This happens on four levels: the "organizational,managerial, interpersonal, and personal."

The organization weds its mission and values to its strategy, structures, and systems. The approachconsiders the customers, suppliers, competitors, and other "stakeholders."

In the past, organizations have tried leadership based on fairness, kindness, and efficiency. Coveyadds "effectiveness" to the other three elements. Effective organizations recognize the "spiritual"needs of everyone involved:

People are considered not just as resources or assets, not just economic, social, and psychologicalbeings but also spiritual beings; they want meaning, a sense of doing something that matters. Theywant purposes that lift them, ennoble them and help them achieve their higher selves. Three thingshave to happen if you want to turn principles into effectiveness. They are "pathfinding,""empowerment," and "team building."

Pathfindingmeans "creating an exciting vision of how to reach a worthy end." Coveyemphasizes that "a worthy end cannot be reached with an unworthy means." A worthy

means encompasses and reflects all the stakeholders. Empowermentis teaching people to "become relatively independent and part of

interdependent, self-managing teams." Empowerment is the result of trust and win-winperformance agreements.

Team buildingmeans involving people in activities that improve the team's productivity andcooperation.

Coveys third blockbuster,First Things First, appeared in 1994. He is joined by co-authors A.Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill. The book gives an expanded explanation of the third of theseven habits; it also rests on the shoulders of the principle-centered philosophy.

The books cover shows a compass superimposed over a clock. The point is that effectiveness

requires "true north" principles rather than an efficiency based on the clock. Covey writes:

For many of us, theres a gap between the clock and the compass--between the way we spend ourtime and what is deeply important to us.

Decisions are easy when its simply a question of "good" or "bad." We know that some timeexpenditures are wasteful, mind-numbing, even destructive. But for most of us the issue is not thedifference between the "good" and the "bad," but between the "good" and the "best." So often,theenemy of the best is the good.

Covey sees interest in time management as an attempt to close the gap between the compass and theclock. He calls this a "popcorn phenomenon" with the "increasing heat and pressure of the culture

creating a rapidly exploding body of literature and products." He says there have been three"generations" of time management:

1) The First Generation involves using simple "reminders." You keep track of things you want to do


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with notes and checklists. Beyond that, you just "go with the flow."

2) The Second Generation brings in "planning and controlling." Calendars and appointment booksenter the picture.

3) The Third Generation adds prioritizing and controlling. People set goals based on their personalvalues.

Covey says that these generations have made people more effective up to a point. Yet none of thempresent a complete "paradigm." The result is like trying to drive somewhere using the wrong map:"Changing our behavior and attitude wont help us ifwe have the wrong map ." According toCovey, "traditional" time management theory includes these fallacies:

"We are in control" The fact is, control is an illusion. The method ignores an essentialreality: Most of our time is spent living and working with other people, who can not becontrolled.

"Efficiency above all" The underlying assumption is that "more" and "faster" is better. Butif youre headed south down the California coast and your destination is New York Cityyoure not being very effective.

"Plug in your VALUES"Values are critically important. They drive our choices andactions. Butjust because we value something does not necessarily mean it will createquality of life. When what we value is in opposition to the natural laws that govern peace ofmind and quality of life, we set ourselves up for failure.

"The clock tells the truth" The clock dictates the rhythm of our lives. But is this idea oftime an adequate framework for all of human experience? We think not. Just as some thingsare more important than others, some moments are more important than others.

What is essential, Covey says, is how much value you get out of you time "rather than how manyminutes or hours" you put into it.

"Competence is king" The idea is that if you can develop competencies, you can createquality of life. But personal effectiveness is a function of both competence and character. Wecan not truncate what we do from who we are.

"Management cures all ills" Time management is a form of management, as opposed toleadership. Management works within a paradigm. Leadership creates new paradigms.Management works within the system. Leadership works on the system Before weconsider the question, "Am I doing things right?" we must first ask ourselves "Am I doingthe right things?"

Covey proposes a "Fourth Generation" time management: one that will retain the strengths of the

earlier generations while avoiding their weaknesses. The fourth generation builds upon an"importance paradigm": Knowing what is important, instead of simply responding to what is urgent,is the first step to putting first things. People tend to act on anything that is urgent. Something that isurgent may or may not be important, but it is the urgency that drives people to action: Urgency is anaddition, a self-destructive behavior that temporarily fills the void created by unmet needs.Yeturgency itself is not really the problem. The problem is when it is the "dominant factor in our lives,it overrides those things that are merely importantThe more urgency we have in our lives, the lessimportance we have."

To illustrate the difference between urgency and importance. Covey provides an "activity matrix"which is divided into four quadrants.

Quadrant I activities are both urgent and important. Examples include handling an irate client,meeting a deadline, and repairing a broken machine. They demand immediate action; we all have tospend some of our time in Quadrant I.


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Quadrant II activities are important, but not urgent. This quadrant can involve long-range planning,anticipating and preventing problems, "empowering others," reading, professional developmentactivities, preparing for future activities, and investing "in relationships through sincere effort anddeep, honest listening." Neglecting Quadrant II leads to "stress, burnout, and deeper crises" inQuadrant I. By investing time in this quadrant you shrink the amount of time in Quadrant I.

Quadrant III is the "phantom of Quadrant I." It includes things that are urgent, but not important.

Because of its urgency, it creates the illusion of importance. Examples include unimportant phonecalls and meetings.

Quadrant IV activities are neither urgent nor important. The reading of pulp novels, mindless TVviewing, and gossiping are examples of Quadrant IV time wasters. Covey states:

Quadrant IV is not survival; its deterioration. We quickly find theres nothing there.The key toeffectiveness is to maximize the time in Quadrant II. In that quadrant we can work on the whatCovey calls "the fulfillment of the four human needs and capacities." They are "to live, to love, tolearn, to leave a legacy."

Covey suggests that you plan on a weekly basis, including Quadrant II activities into your schedule:

To translate goals into action: The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule yourpriorities.First Things Firstassumes that everyone either has a mission statement or would want towrite one: This is a written statement about what you value most on a lifetime basis--what kind of

person you want to become, what unique contributions you want to make, the principles uponwhich you build your life. Just like a compass, it can help direct your path. A mission statement canhelp lead your activities toward "true north."You write goals that grow out of your mission. Youschedule activities that contribute to your goals.

The program also brings "roles" into the planning process:

We have important roles at work, in the family, in the community, and in other areas of life. If weare unhappy, it is often because were succeeding in one role at the expense another.

A clear set of roles creates order and balance.

A person can have more than one role in the same environment. At home, roles can include both"wife" and "mother" or both "husband" and "father." You can also cover all the relationships athome with just one role: "family member."

At work, one job may include several roles, such as "administrator, marketer, personnel officer, andlong-term planner."

To help implement the system, the Covey Leadership Center markets a Seven Habits Organizer.Also available from Day-Timers, the organizer provides a two-page spread for planning each week.

Along the left side of the spread are boxes for the name of each role. There is also space for writinggoals for the week that contribute to each role.

Besides the weekly planning space, each role receives a tab section within the organizer. The userreceives instructions to record information behind the role tabs, rather than chronologically. Eachrole gets its own goal sheet, activities checklist form, telephone and address page, and note page.

The organizer also has places for planning and recording "sharpening the saw" (Habit Seven)activities.

Because of its popularity,First Things Firstis bringing time management theory to many people forthe first time. A few comments may be in order.

Although the Covey Leadership Center has obtained a trademark for "Quadrant II TimeManagement," the idea is not new. Most other well-known time management trainers are careful todistinguish between the terms "important" and "urgent." Charles Hobbs included an


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importance/urgency matrix with his 1983 audio program "Insight on Time Management." So it maybe questionable whether Coveys emphasis on "importance" really constitutes a new "generation" intime management.

What Covey does do well is to bring a fresh perspective to some old ideas.

For example, other time management trainers tell people to set goals for different areas of their

lives. The result is goals for the family and for the different responsibilities at work. So, "roles"have been covered before even if the trainer never mentions the word.

Likewise, other programs tell you to set up sections in an organizer for different responsibilities andpeople. So, again, roles have been covered before.

What is unique inFirst Things Firstis its emphasis on the roles themselves. The earlier programssimply tell you to set goals for each important area of your life. What Covey is saying is that youshould think deeply about the underlying roles and integrate them into your week. By looking atgoals from that perspective, a person might set some that might have been overlooked.

In its discussion of principles,First Things Firstgets into some slippery terrain. Covey states that"Third Generation" trainers (i.e., his competitors) tell people to become "a law unto themselves."

This is because they tell people to write down their values according to their own belief systems.This is unacceptable, he says, unless you also bring natural law, or "true north" principles, into the

picture.

However, it is not true that other trainers tell people that they can get away with anything they writeas a value. They are simply acknowledging that different people will approach life differently

because of their background and beliefs. The laws of human behavior are not always as clear as therising and setting of the sun.

There must surely be a way to reconcile Covey with the other time management theorists. When hecompares values to principles, all that Covey really seems to be saying is this: Be sure your valuesare the ones that really work. And that is a point worth keeping in mind--whether youre anexecutive making a decision or Judge Pyncheon planning his day.

BRIAN TRACY:RENAISSANCE MAN OF SUCCESS

TRAINING

Brian Tracy is the speaker on countless Nightingale-Conant audio programs. The Canadian-bornseminar leader seems to cover the entire personal and professional development field. His topicsrange from corporate strategic planning to coping with marital difficulties. Tracy studies existingmaterials and tries to bring together "only the best" of the available ideas.

Tracy talks about time management in several of his audio and video tapes. Here are some ideasthat you can glean from the various Tracy materials:

1) Goals. The more goals you set the "more efficient you will become." Set goals consistent with"your highest aspirations and your innermost values and convictions."

When setting goals, concentrate on doing the right thing, rather than doing things right: "If it's notworth doing, it's not worth doing right." Ask yourself: "What are you trying to do? How are youtrying to do it?"

2) Organized plans of action. A plan answers the question, "How are you trying to do it?":

The more time you spend planning, the better and more foolproof your plans become. In re-working

your plans for achieving your goals, your goals become increasingly believable and achievable.Your confidence in your ability to accomplish them grows. When you break down even the biggestgoal into its individual parts, and then organize the goal into a step-by-step series of specific


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actions, it seems much more manageable and under your control. The more you plan, the more youdrive the goal into your subconscious mind where it takes on a motivational power of its own.

The pay-off from good planning is enormous. It is estimated that one minute in planning saves atleast five minutes in execution. Put another way, your investment in planning pays you a 500 percent return.

3) Analysis. Make a list:You can bring order out of chaos faster with a list than with any other time management tool. If, atany time, you feel yourself overwhelmed with work, stop and take the time necessary to list everysingle thing you need to do. The very act of organizing your responsibilities on a list will enable youto bring them under control.

4) Set priorities. Determine what is relevant and irrelevant. Ask: "What is the most valuable use ofmy time, right now? What impact will this have on the future?"

Also ask: "What is the limiting step that determines how quickly I can go from where I am to whereI want to be. What is the bottleneck that determines the speed at which I get there?"

5) Concentrate: "Concentration means the ability to stay with a task until it is complete.Concentration means to work in a straight line from where you are to where you want to go, withoutdiversion or distraction, without getting sidetracked into doing things of less importance."

6) Setting deadlines and rewards:

Create a reward system for the completion of a major task and refuse to give yourself the rewarduntil the job is 100 per cent complete.

Deadlines act as a forcing system that causes you to work harder and more effectively as thedeadline approaches.

7) The time log: Tracy suggests that you set an alarm to go off every fifteen minutes:

Make a note of what you're doing each time the alarm rings. Ask yourself, "Is what I am doing nowa good use of my time?"

This will bring your full attention to what you are doing. Tracy says, "All of life is the study ofattention."

8) Procrastination: It can be either positive or negative. "You must learn to procrastinate creativelyon the 80 per cent of things that you have to do that account for only 20 per cent of the value."

9) Delegate: "You should assign, delegate, or have someone else do any job that can be done at awage less than what you earn or desire to earn."

10) Interruptions: Control the telephone and walk-in visitors. Tracy recommends a line from John

Malloy, author ofDress for Success andHow to Run the Competition into the Ground. Just say,"Back to work!"

11) Key result areas:

Your key result area is the answer to the question, "Why am I on the payroll." Eachperson has one or two key result areas where they can make an important contributionto the organization. By concentrating on your key result areas you will achieve the mostsignificant results in the shortest period of time.

12) Batching Tasks: "When you do a group of similar tasks together, the amount of time it takes youto do each subsequent task declines."

13) Neatness: "Before you start to work clear your work space of everything except what you needto complete the highest priority task on hand."


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14) Chunks of time: Allow time for important work. "It is not possible to accomplish meaningfultasks in less than 60 to 90 minutes." Be willing to come in early or stay late. To create uninterruptedtime, work through the noon hour while everyone else is at lunch.

15) Transition time: Turn waiting time into learning time. According to Tracy, you can become "oneof the best-educated persons in North America" simply by listening to audio cassettes in your car.

16) The telephone: Tracy says that anyone who picks up a telephone without something to write on"is a fool."

17) Punctuality: "Get a reputation for being on time."

18) Work simplification: "Systematize the work process."

19) Saying no: Say no "early and often." You should value all your time the same as your time atwork:

If your hourly rate is $25, and someone wants an hour of your time, that person is, ineffect, asking you for $25.

If a person or activity is not important enough for you to open your wallet and peal offtwenty dollar bills and give them away, then discipline yourself not to do it.

20) Balance: Use your increased productivity to "get more time to spend with the people you careabout." The purpose of time management is to help you "get more pleasure out of life." Spend timeon physical fitness. Remember that "relaxing is often a valuable use of time."

Tracy says the key to successful time management is to have a "long time horizon." He quotesEdward Banfield of Harvard University, author ofThe Unheavenly City. Banfield sought the causeof social mobility:

Dr. Banfield finally concluded that there was only one factor that could accurately predict whether

or not you were going to move upward and onward financially. He called it "time perspective." Hedefined time perspective as "the period of time that you take into consideration when making yourday-to-day decisions and planning your life."

Banfield found that successful people planned five, ten, and twenty years ahead:

What Dr. Banfield found was that as you go down the social and economic ladder, the timeperspective at each income level shortens. When you get to the very bottom of the social pyramid tothe hopeless alcoholic or drug addict you find a time perspective of one shot or one drink.

The average working person has a time perspective of about two pay periods.You begin to moveyourself into a higher social class the day you begin to take the long view in your own life.

Tracy concludes that "long view" helps "sharpen the short view." One way to set short-termpriorities is look at the future impact of present decisions. Reading a book, or listening to aneducational tape, or taking a course are activities with a "high potential future impact on yourcareer." Watching television, reading the sports page, and taking a coffee break are activities that--no matter how well you do them--"will have no possible impact on your life."

At the conclusion of his audio program,How To Master Your Time, Tracy sums up his philosophyof time management

Time management is really life management, a discipline and a habit that can be learned. Timemanagement must be practiced every day, all the days of your life. It is the one habit--the one skill--that is essential for a satisfying, fulfilling, high-performance life.


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ALEC MACKENZIE:ESCAPING FROM THE TIME TRAP

The Time Trap is not a Star Trekepisode about being caught in the a time warp or a space-timecontinuum. It is the title of Dr. Alec Mackenzie's down to earth book on time in the workplace. The1972 edition of the book (revised in 1990) helped spawn the modern time management boom.

Mackenzie ties time management directly to the issue of American productivity:

The U.S. manufacturing sector is showing an improvement in productivity at the rate of 3.5 per centa year. The service sector, however, has lagged behind at a rate of 0.5 per cent since 1979. Andsince service industries represent more than 70 per cent of our economy, this is an acute problemindeed.

Therefore our productivity must shift to individuals. If the memo writer, the marketing vicepresidents and the finance officers can learn to get better results and do it in less time, the impact onthe U.S. economy could be powerful.

Charles Hobbs credits Mackenzie with doing the definitive study on time wasters. Here are the 20biggest time wasters that Mackenzie found in the workplace:

Management by crisis Telephone interruptions Inadequate planning Attempting too much Drop-in visitors Ineffective delegation Personal disorganization Lack of self-discipline Inability to say no Procrastination Meetings Paperwork Leaving tasks unfinished Inadequate staff Socializing Confused responsibility or authority Poor communication Inadequate controls and reports Incomplete information Travel

In The Time Trap, Mackenzie devotes an entire chapter to each time waster.

Mackenzie uses himself to illustrate the problem of procrastination. He tells of the time he keptputting off his calls to sell Celestial Seasonings Tea on his program. When his calls didn't gothrough, Mackenzie became convinced that the president wasn't interested.

He finally reached him on the seventh call, and Mackenzie felt the "final put-down" when the mancalled him "Charlie." He had picked up the phone expecting someone else. Mackenzie wearilyidentified himself. The president said, "Alec Mackenzie? I've had your name on my desk formonths. I don't need any explanation of your program. How soon can you come out to conduct atwo-day seminar on time management for all my people?"

Mackenzie asks seminar participants to do "the one thing they'll not want to do," and that is to keep

a time log. For at least three days, they must write down every interruption and change of mentalattention, "no matter how trivial."

The purpose is to find out where their time is really going and which time wasters need to be


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attacked. Mackenzie states:

When you grasp the universal fact that there will never be 25 hours in one day.when you internalizethis basic truth of contemporary existence.you will have armed yourself with a piece of knowledgeyou can use as the groundwork for making radical changes in the way you manage yourself andachieve your goals.

He says the time log will create the motivation leads to change:The time log is necessary because the painful task of changing our habits requires far moreconviction than we can build from learning about the experience of others. We need the amazingrevelation of the great portions of our time we are wasting to provide the incentive and thedetermination required to manage ourselves.

Many of Mackenzie's participants complain that the time log itself will take up too much time. Hetells them:

It's something you can't afford not to take. Since you take the log while you are doing the activity, ittakes much less time than you originally think. Jot down the entry during the phone call, while avisitor is on the way in, and at the beginning of an interruption.

Mackenzie says a time log brings its own reward:

The most astonishing time saver which results from a time log is the powerful self-correcting tendency which sets in automatically once you start the log. The time log isnot only an essential diagnostic tool, it is an extremely effective time managementdevice in itself.

One senior AT&T executive liked it so much that he "never stopped taking it."

Mackenzie also introduces employees to the "ideal day." They decide the best times for variousactivities and try to do them at the same time every day:

The ideal day is a template, in effect, for your daily plan. It indicates blocks of time formajor categories of activities. Then, for each day's plan, you schedule the specifics inthose major categories.

Mackenzie asks the organization to set up a "quiet hour," a period when everyone is able, in theory,to work without interruption for 60 minutes. He says that one hour of uninterrupted work is worththe weight of three which are constantly interrupted.

Mackenzie endorses the use of an organizer to plan and keep track of time. His Time Tacticsorganizer includes "Control Sheets" to track projects and a "Contact Log" to record decisions andfollow-up items. Also available: a "Time Waster Eliminator" form.

When he discusses the problem of the cluttered desk, probably the most prosaic of all timemanagement topics, Mackenzie recalls the story of an executive in Heidelberg, Germany. The manturned to him and said:

Herr Doctor, do you know why we stack our desks? It's all those things we don't want to forget. Weput them on top where we'll see them. The trouble is it works too well. Every time our gazewanders, we remember them, and we forget what we we're working on.

Mackenzie's prescription is to "keep your desk clean for the rest of your life" and never haveanything on it but what you are working on at the moment.

Along with the minutia of time management training, Mackenzie teaches a system to set and

manage goals. Mackenzie sees goals as the way to cope with turbulence in the U.S. economy:

People in contemporary society are likely to make at least seven significant careerchanges during their adult lives--and not all of their own choosing. This is a subject


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which should be dealt with universally in secondary schools and colleges so that it isless overwhelming when it occurs. The person who has thought through the concepts ofsuccess, failure, and change to determine what they really mean will be better equippedto approach change of this kind as learning experiences and as opportunities orchallenges.

TRENDS IN TIME MANAGEMENT

TRAINING

A Focus on Teams

One recent trend in time management training is an emphasis on groups, teams, and teamwork. In1990, Alec Mackenzie published Teamwork Through Time Management.

As an extension of its TimeQuest seminar, Franklin Quest offers a program on "project andworkload management." Projects tend to be team-oriented, andPlanning for Results includesinstruction in "project teamwork." Steven Covey devotes a full section ofFirst Things Firstto "TheSynergy of Interdependence." By that he means achieving more as a group than you could havedone alone.

A key element inFirst Things Firstis its emphasis on "roles." Roles tend to involve other people. Intheory, a role could be something done entirely alone: someone might write "Amateur Photographerof Wilderness Rocks" on his list of roles. For the most part, however, the roles mean relationshipswith other people: "Parent," "Employee," or "Work Team Member."

Day-Timers' newFour-Dimensional Time Managementalso takes a collective approach. The

workbook lists these training goals:The purpose of this training program is to teach you how to utilize time to achieve goals. By the endof this audio program, you will learn to use your Day-Timer System to: Focus.on what's reallyimportant to you and your team. Plan.and prioritize individual and team goals. Act.to turn goals intoreality. personally and professionally

Team-up.to maximize success through the power of synergy.

The program even goes into the Tuckman model of team development: "forming, storming,norming, and performing."

AN EMPHASIS ON WEEKLY PLANNINGAt a time when Tom Peters talks about nanosecond events, there is at least one time perspective thatseems to be getting longer. Traditionally, time management has tended to go directly from goals todaily planning. Now, there seems to be more emphasis on planning by the week.

Kerry Gleeson of PEP (the Personal Efficiency Program, Boca Raton, Florida) suggests thesereasons for weekly planning:

Events change rapidly and it is not feasible for most people to plan a month in advance in detail. Onthe other hand, if one only plans a day in advance, there is insufficient lead time to get criticalthings done.

By identifying and prioritizing the actions to be done in the next week, you simplify dailyplanning.If it's important, it will be on your weekly plan.

The wide exposure of the Steven CoveyFirst Things Firstprogram has helped generate interest in


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weekly planning. Covey states:

While the objective of most daily planning approaches is to help us put first things first, the realityis that daily planning keeps us focused on doing the urgent things first. The perspective isinsufficient to accomplish the result.

Of course, we can't just be focused on the big picture either. If we don't translate that vision into

action, we lose touch with reality, become idealistic dreamers, and lose credibility with ourselvesand with others.

Covey compares this to the lenses for a camera. A telephoto lens makes objects appear closer thanthey really are. A wide angle lens makes them seem further away. Both kinds of lenses distort theappearance of objects. Only a "normal" lens, one of a particular focal length, can make objectsappear as the eye sees them. Similarly, weekly planning helps us see events in their proper

perspective:

The week represents a complete patch in the fabric of life. It has the workdays, evenings, theweekend. It's close enough to be highly relevant, but distant enough to provide context and

perspective.

Covey suggests three other reasons for weekly planning:

1) Balanced renewal. "The perspective of the week prompts us to plan for renewal--a time forrecreation and reflection." During a weekly day of renewal, you can plan for the week ahead:

Quadrant II weekly planning itself is a renewing activity. Through it, we renew our awareness ofour needs and capacities and true north principles.

2) Whole-parts-whole. You look at the whole picture; then you look at its parts:

We bring them together again into the whole, marrying the strengths of both perspectives throughthe normal lens of weekly organizing. As we bring them together again, we see the interrelatednessof the parts.

3) Content in context:

Weekly organizing puts content--the activities of our lives--into the contextof what's important.Itcreates a powerful framework that represents our best thinking around what first things first are andhow we can put them first during the next seven days of our lives.

THE QUEST FOR PERFECT ORGANIZER.PART TWO:

THINK DIGITAL

Digital technology has brought a new twist to time management tools. The ultimate quest might bethe ability to access any information, anywhere and anytime.

For now, however, the Franklin Quest Company offers a computerized version of its TimeQuestsystem. The Ascend program boasts the following features:

An appointment schedule (with alarms) in daily, weekly, and monthly views. An E-mailmoduleThe ability to print on a variety of page sizesA "values and goals wizard"

The ability to connect to work groups and coordinate schedules

In addition, Franklin Quest offers a separate ValuesQuest program. For those who need help, itprovides "36 sample values, accompanying clarifying statements, and long range goals."

Much of the appeal of an organizer program is that it also works as a contact manager. Today, manypeople have a lot of other people to keep up with: sales prospects, a professional network, orcontacts for a job search. People need to record the dates of their conversations and what they


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discuss with each person.

With a paper-based system, you write notes on the daily calendar pages. Over time, the notes on aparticular subject can become scattered among widely separated pages. It can be difficult to look atall the information at one time. With an organizer program you can quickly pull all the informationtogether in one place.

Harvey Mackay, author ofSwim with the Sharks without Getting Eaten Alive, is marketing aprogram called Sharkware. In his books, Mackay has repeatedly promoted the idea of keeping a bigRolodex file. This, he says, is the key to building a "network of power relationships." TheSharkware software combines the functions of a Rolodex and a time management system. AlthoughSharkware is a time management tool, the main selling point is its use as a contact manager.

IDG Books has also gotten into the contact management ACT! The company became a publishingphenomenon with itsFor Dummies series of computer books. It is now extending theFor Dummiesidea into subjects that are not purely digital. They include Sex for Dummies and Time Management

for Dummies. (Only the latter book will be quoted here.)

In Time Management for Dummies, author Jeffrey Mayer touts ACT!, a program created by

Symatec Corporation in Cupertino, California. Mayer states:In would like to mention I don't work for Symatec, and I don't own stock in the company. I'm justan everyday user who thinks ACT! is a very good productivity improving tool. Well, to be honest,I'll be writingACT! For Dummies.so I'm more than just an everyday user.

Mayer points out another advantage that a computerized organizer has over a paper-based one:

It takes a lot of work to keep a list of things to do up to date. We meticulously writedown the names of various tasks, projects, or other items of business that need to bedone on a specific day's page in our daily planning book. But if that item isn't done onthe day it was entered, it must be moved to a future day. And if it's not moved, we runthe risk of forgetting about it.

A computer-based organizer will automatically move an unfinished item to the next day. Similarly,all that it takes is a few clicks of a mouse to change an appointment to another date.

There are some drawbacks to having your time management inside a computer. Most timemanagement trainers say that you should take your organizer everywhere you. That won't happen ifit's in a desktop--or even a lap-top--computer.

To help get around this problem, Day-Timers encourages its software users to print out all the dailypages. The user can then put them into a regular Day-Timer binder and carry them around.

This, however, seems to break another time management "rule": Only record data into one time

management tool. Inevitably, people will type into the computer some of the time and write on theirprinted pages the rest of the time. It would take an ongoing effort to keep the two versions alignedwith one another. For example, someone might set an appointment while carrying the printed bookand forget to enter it into the computer.

The emerging palm-top computers may offer hope in resolving the paper versus PC dilemma. In thefall of 1995, radio stations around the country aired this ad:

Woman: I knew it the moment I held you.

Announcer: People grow rather passionate about the new Psion Series 3A palm-top computer.

Woman: Oh, the magic of your touch!

Announcer: For good reason. The Series 3A's small size belies its strengths.

Woman: You anticipate my innermost thoughts and needs.


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Announcer: The 3A can hold your appointment calendar for the year or twelve months worth ofsales data. It's like having an office in your pocket.

Woman: I couldn't possibly put a price on what you mean to me!

Announcer: The Psion Series 3A palm top computer starts at just $400 which makes it easy to fall inlove with a Psion today.

The palm-top computer seems to address the need for a tool that is portable. Now, someone needs tomake one that won't break if you drop it and that few people would want to steal. The paperorganizers still have those advantages.

TIME MANAGEMENT RECONSIDERED

"Don't attempt to change the way you work to fit a pre-packaged time

management system. I'm quite sure that you've had the experience of getting so

frustrated by being disorganized that you went out and bought an expensive time

management system. You probably spent hours learning how to use it and days

setting it up. Then, you found out it was more trouble than it was worth. It simplydidn't complement the way you work or the type of work you do."

Roger Dawson, The ThirteenSecrets of Power Performance (1994)

Another trend in time management might be a rebellion against the time management programsthemselves. Charles J. Givens, author ofWealth Without Risk, says:

In the Twentieth Century we have become more and more sophisticated. We have become sosophisticated that some people manage their time with a thirty-pound time management book. I seethem everywhere. I mean they are this wide and this thick. It takes so much time to use the timemanagement book--who has time to manage their time?

Dr. Robert Cooper of Advanced Excellence Systems, an executive development firm inMinneapolis, says:

Here's a piece of advice that I've learned the hard way: Don't let ti

an unhurried look at time management

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