Nearly every CEO and business owner has learned about time management. However times have actually changed and with them the concepts how we organize ourselves. If you still do apply the time management techniques of the last century, you are likely to set yourself up for failure in your future.
Last Century
In the seventies and eighties time management was about how to cram more tasks into the 24 hours that everyone is given every day, in other words, how to get more done. While this provided a major leap in productivity, things changed in the nineties. the idea of actually working less appeared. One of the first books on this new idea was “The Tao Of Time”, which dealt with the spiritual aspects of using our time, and today we don’t talk about ‘Time Management‘ anymore, but about ‘Priority Management‘.
The fact is that everyone has 24 hours every day, no matter of age or income or location. However everybody perceives time differently.
How we perceive time
We all have moments when we are bored, when time passes too slowly, and we have times when we feel pressured, when time is running too fast. Why‘s that? Every clock is ticking at the same steady pace.
The answer: It has only to do with your perception of time.
Your perception of time has only to do with what happens in the here and now. If we deal with something interesting, time seems to stand still, if it is something funny, time seems to run. And at the same moment, in the same situation another individual might have the opposite perception/feeling. So it all boils down to your perception and your purpose.
While Einstein made his breakthrough discoveries about relativity about hundred years ago, we are only now starting to understand how that insight relates to our daily life. To cut a long story short, we can learn from Einstein, that we are the creator of our own time. To explain this in detail would be a too lengthy scientific discussion at this place so for the purpose of this article I invite you to just accept this as a given fact.
In order to set the right priorities, or as we used to say, manage your time correctly, you have to do the following steps:
1. Determine your core values.
Your core values like “freedom”, “family”, “love”, “wealth” etc. determine what is important to you. They are the basis of your decisions. Unless you have determined your individual core value system in writing you are bound to be subject to other people’s wants, needs and decisions. And not living your own purpose will make you sick (I’m a medical doctor and I know where chronic diseases come from).
With your core value system in place you are able to distinguish whether a task or activity situation is valuable to you, or rather a waste of time.
2. Respect your basic needs
This includes moments of physical activity as well as moments of rest, contemplation, sleep and meditation. It also includes what fuel you give to your body, your nutrition.
3. Observe biological rhythms
All your physical functions work rhythmically, and our inner rhythms are synchronized with outer rhythms like day and night and the seasons.
4. Do it in writing
If you don’t write down your priorities, values and needs, they will to easily slip your mind. You will not be able to act accordingly, which means you are not using your time accordingly. So, make a list, preferably handwritten in big bold letters, and have it in your visible range. Apply it daily.
Use this list as criteria for your goalsetting and for your activities, be it in business, relationships, and personal life.