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A Few Myths About Managing Your Time
doors. (On the other hand, if you find travel highly stress-
ful, then this solution would be inappropriate.)
• Make individual arrangements for the best ways to com- 23
municate with the people you work most closely with. For
instance, ask that your co-workers provide you with one
hour a day in which they won’t telephone or walk into
your office, except in a dire emergency.
• If one of your problems is that other people constantly
misplace documents, be sure to make a backup copy of
all current documents requiring the attention of others.
• If you have problems getting other people to meet their
deadlines, consider dividing the work up into smaller
pieces, with mini-deadlines for each piece. Some people
work best by concentrating on a tree rather than the entire
forest.
Of course, some forms of environmental disorder will be
outside your control, no matter what you do. Different compa-
nies have different cultures. If your way of working deviates
from that of the culture of your company, you have only two
choices: adapt to the rhythms and style of that organization or
look elsewhere for a company where you’d feel more comfort-
able. Remember, too, that it’s always possible to be an island of
calm in a sea of confusion, if you take control—at the very

Use Your Imagination
Did you know that in some cultures there’s no word for
“hour” or “minute”?
Presumably, your company isn’t one of them. In response to a sur-
vey question,“Do you feel that you have enough time in your daily
life?” 90% of respondents admitted to a sense of “time poverty.” You
aren’t alone.
One way to encourage your company—particularly if it’s small—to
adopt a more balanced view of time might be to suggest a monthly (or
even weekly) “down time” hour—one hour when employees turn off
their computers and congregate in a room without phones for coffee
and pastry and chitchat—no work-related subjects permitted!