Page 21 - Time Management

Time Management
6
The Value of Time
You may have seen this popular, uncredited e-mail that has
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widely circulated on the Internet:
• To realize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade.
• To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to
a premature baby.
• To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly news-
paper.
• To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to
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meet.
• To realize the value of one second, ask the person who just avoided
a traffic accident.
• To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who won an
Olympic medal.
Time has a value greater than any currency. We may leave our chil-
dren the money we don’t use in our own lifetimes, but we cannot
leave them one millisecond of time.

How Time-Managed Are You, Really?
Before you can decide what kinds of changes you want to
make—both in your professional career and in your personal
life—you need to understand what kinds of choices (many of
them subconscious) you’re already making. You need to ask
yourself some hard questions, delve deeply, and be brutally
honest with yourself in answering them. In short, you need a
picture of both your natural organizational style and the ways in
which that style both supports and undermines your relationship
with time.
The First Step

Start by taking a “snapshot” of your time management style. It
will be a good first step on the way to understanding your
behavior patterns. Check each item you answer “yes” to:
❏ Do you have a daily calendar (print or electronic) that
you carry with you to and from work?
❏ Do you make a copy of every document you sign?
❏ Do you have maps in your car? If you don’t have a car,

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