Time Management – The Journey

This is probably the only place that deals with Time Management issues that will tell you the process will not be an easy or a quick one.

Time Management is not a destination, it's a journey. I have used this saying, slogan on my material for as long as I can remember. So long, that I cannot remember, for 100% certainty whether I used it first or whether have seen it before and cannot remember the source. I am pretty good at remembering and crediting sources so I believe it is my creation. If not, I hope someone can set me straight on this one.

Regardless of the source of the quote, I have certainly adopted it as my own. It very clearly sums up my philosophy on time and how we should perceive it. I used to give seminars on Time Management, close to a 1,000 perhaps. I used to start every seminar with the same line; this is just the start of the journey. I wanted the people in the seminar to look at Time management in the light that would best prepare them for the process ahead of them.

If you start a process and you enter into that process with a clear understanding of what is going to take place, you stand a much greater chance of succeeding than if you start the process on a faulty understanding. Makes sense to me. I find it disturbing to see these ads that claim that if you buy a certain type of soft ware, your time will mysteriously take on some sort of magical powers that will allow you to accomplish 50 or 60 % more in less time, with the flick of a switch.

I get embarrassed just reading those claims. Suffice to say, I do not share those feelings. I am a pragmatist, I believe in working, applying yourself, getting a good workable plan, put it into place and may the best person win. I have been working on and with Time Management tools and Systems for the last 35 years, if there was a Silver Bullet out there, I would of found it, marketed and made many millions from it, I have not been able to do any of that and I am sorry to say, either has anyone else.

Which brings us to here and now. The good news is this, you can now start today, and for the rest of your life, you can do what anyone else, who has tried, you can start to work on improving your life through proper Time Management principles. The further good news is that regardless of how long the journey is, you will start to see and benefit from your labors immediately.

This does not mean that overnight all of your worries, stress and anxieties will vanish, what it means is you will start to see benefits that correspond with the changes you will be making in your life.

One of the reasons I like working with people on Time Management issues is that when you adopt, even a single new principle and then apply it to your everyday life, you reap that benefit, for the rest of your life. That is also the reason that when you refer to Time Management as a journey, a life long journey, you should not perceive this as a negative thing, but one that will allow you to benefit immensely from small changes that you can continually make, for the rest of your life.

There are not many instances in life when you can make small changes in the way you do things, that will give you a lifetime of benefits. Time is the stuff life is made of. Activities are the things that take up your time. When you put the right activities into the right parcels of time, you can make your life long journey a thing of beauty.