Time Management Essay Example for Free

Time Management Essay INTRODUCTION This chapter will begin with a de? nition of time management, and will then discuss common time management problems, and invite you to identify your own issues. It then moves on to examine possible solutions and the guiding principles of time management. To check your understanding there will be a number of scenarios and exercises to practise time management skills, followed by a personal contract aimed at improving your own approach to time management. WHAT IS TIME MANAGEMENT? Time management involves making the best use of time, and getting more done in the time available. It means not wasting time on irrelevant things, instead focusing on important parts of the job. Ultimately this means working calmly and effectively, avoiding the panic and anxiety of the last-minute rush. In the western world, time is treated as a valuable resource which people spend. Most managers claim that they do not have enough time. Often this is blamed on the organisation and colleagues for making too many demands. However, we all have at least some control over how we spend our time. We can and do make choices. Recognising this is the ? rst step on the path to effective time management. DEFINITION OF TIME MANAGEMENT. Time management means taking more control over how we spend our time and making sensible decisions about the way we use it. 29 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Personal Effectiveness If good time management is about taking control, it involves ? nding those areas where you do have control, and also ? nding those where you think you don’t, but really you do. For example you may have far too many things to do and this makes you feel helpless, but maybe you have the option of renegotiating some parts of your work, or even delegating some activities. There may still be some areas where you don’t have control – for example if a key part of the job is to be available at a certain time to provide advice to others, you cannot just decide to be absent. Or you may have a coursework assignment to submit – some deadlines are not renegotiable. In these areas it is more sensible not to waste time railing against these commitments; instead concentrate on ? nding those areas you do have the power to change, and make the changes that will help you to become more effective. Exercises 2. 1 and 2. 2 should start to help you identify those problem areas and areas where you would like to make changes. PREPARATION FOR CHANGE Before reading further in this chapter it is helpful for you to have an idea of how effective you are as a time manager. Re? ecting on your own time bandits and traps will make this chapter more useful and relevant to you. Begin by brainstorming three barriers that you think prevent you from being effective at work, or at study, as indicated in Exercise 2. 1. Now go on to Exercise 2. 2 and rate your effectiveness using the list provided. This list has been developed by distilling some of the common problems that have been identi?ed by several hundred staff and students in workshops held over the last ? ve years at Imperial College. Further exercises and selfevaluation checks are provided on the website. The accuracy of this tool depends on you being honest with yourself, so make sure you rate yourself according to how you actually behave, not how you would like to be. Once you have done Exercise 2. 2 you can return to Exercise 2. 1 and see if the barriers you ? rst identi? ed relate to those issues you have rated 3 in Exercise 2. 2, and if necessary add to, or amend, your answers to Exercise 2. 1. EXERCISE 2. 1 BARRIERS TO BEING EFFECTIVE What are the three main barriers you have that prevent you being effective? 30 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Time management EXERCISE 2. 2 PROBLEMS DIAGNOSING YOUR TIME MANAGEMENT Note: assess your behaviour as it is not as you would like it to be Go through the list of time management problems below and rate each one with relation to its frequency as a problem for you and also its severity using the following ratings: 0 this problem does not relate to me 1 this problem partly relates to me, relates some of the time 2 this is a regular problem for me 3 this is a major problem for me, it severely hampers my effectiveness A. Prioritisation and scheduling 1. I am not sure what tasks I have to do each day, I don’t make a to-do list. 2. When I have ? nished one job I just go on to the next without checking on my priorities. 3. I don’t work out which tasks have the biggest gain for me. 4. I have dif? culty in setting priorities. 5. I have dif? culty in keeping to priorities or a schedule I have set. 6. I am a perfectionist and even if I have several tasks to do I allow myself to spend ages on one task to get it right, which can cause problems in completing my work. 7. I often do trivial tasks at my high-energy time of day. 8. I don’t stop to think when my best time of day is for working. B. Persistence, procrastination and focus 9. I ? it from task to task, starting a lot of things but not always ? nishing them. 10. I feel very intimidated by large important tasks, and don’t break them down into smaller ones. 11. I put off dif? cult tasks until the last possible moment. 12. I procrastinate, prevaricate and can’t decide what to do, nor make decisions. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 31 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www.cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Personal Effectiveness 13. I put thing off until the last minute and then I have to work in a rush and panic. 14. I allow myself to be interrupted from my work, for example by the phone, talking to others, distractions, new e-mails coming in. 15. I spend ages on the telephone, sur? ng the net, or answering e-mails. 16. Once I get started, I cannot stop a task, even if it is taking far too much time and there are other pressing things to do. 17. I don’t have any protected time in the day when I can get on with my priorities. C. Role de? nition 18. I am not sure what my key objectives are. 19. I am unclear of my role de? nitions and lines of responsibility. 20. I’m not sure how long certain tasks take so ? nd it hard to allocate the appropriate time to them. 21. I try and do everything myself, and do not consider whether it would be better to delegate tasks, or ask for more help and support. D. Work environment and organisation 22. My workspace is a mess, I can never ? nd anything at work, and papers pile up around me without being ? led. 23. I don’t know what to do with paper – I just leave it hanging around. 24. I don’t have anywhere where I can work uninterrupted. 25. My work environment is noisy and distracting, and I don’t ? nd ways to deal with this. 26. If I ? nd myself with free time in the day, for example when commuting, waiting for an appointment, I don’t have things with me to do. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 32 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Time management E. Study skills 27. I take ages to read anything, and ? nd it hard to remember what I have read. 28. I’m not sure how to go about academic or work related reading. F. Assertiveness 29. I ? nd it very hard to say ‘no’ to other people. 30. I feel guilty if I am getting on with my own agenda and not focusing on helping others. 31. I spend most of my time doing things for other people, and hardly any time getting on with my own agenda. G. Anxiety, stress and emotion 32. I worry a lot and regularly suffer from work related anxiety and stress. 33. I don’t feel very con? dent so I often worry that I’m not doing well or going about my work in the right way. 34. I never have fun at work, I don’t enjoy my work. 35. I get very bored at work and this slows me down or allows me to get sidetracked. 36. I ? nd it hard to concentrate. H. Life balance 37. I don’t have time for exercise, health, leisure, family, I just work all the time. 38. I get very tired and exhausted at work. Scoring 0–38 Averaging 0s and 1s You are an excellent time manager 39–76 Averaging 1s and 2s You have some areas to work on but overall you are an effective time manager 77–114 Averaging 2s and 3s You have a big problem with time management and need to take action now to get yourself more in control of your time (but don’t worry – that is what this chapter aims to do) 33 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3. 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 0 1 2 3 Personal Effectiveness Below are some common examples of time management problems. EXAMPLE 2. 1 PROBLEMS EXAMPLES OF TIME MANAGEMENT Work -related ‘I work on a project to implement IT in my organisation, but I report to two bosses, the head of the IT Department, and the Project Leader – their demands of me are diverse and sometimes con? icting and very confusing, as a result I get in a mess. ’ ‘I work in an open-plan of? ce. I constantly get distracted by people talking on the phone, chatting across desks, stopping to talk to me. I just cannot concentrate on my work, and I end up frittering my time on super? cial tasks whilst at work, and then working well into the night at home to catch up with the tougher parts of my work. ’ ‘I am a design engineer and each part of the work I do seems to take at least three times longer than we estimate it will take, meaning that I spend a lot of time explaining why the work is late and reorganising schedules and activities. This impacts negatively on people further down the development process. ’ ‘I set myself priorities but because I also work as a support service for other people in the organisation, I get inundated by e-mails and requests from others. I spend all my time meeting other people’s demands and my priorities go out of the window! ’ ‘Last year I spent ages developing a balanced scorecard system for the organisation to performance manage the managerial team, then a new director was appointed and he pulled the plug on months of work and asked me to set up a totally different scheme. It seems like much of my work is a waste of time. Study -related ‘I am engaged in a part-time professional development programme ‘Into Leadership’ where I am attending day release modules, writing coursework assignments both individually and with a group, and am trying to juggle this in between a busy work schedule in my role in the Laboratories of a Government Department. I feel so panicked with all I have to do I end up feeling paralysed. ‘I don’t seem to be able to get going early enough on my distance learning course assignments and so I often end up staying up into the early hours to get it in the following morning. The work is rushed and mediocre as a result, and I am then tired for days after. ’ ‘I have young children and I ? nd it impossible to get on with my studying at home. As a result I feel incompetent when it comes to discussing case studies in course discussion because I haven’t the faintest idea what they are about as I haven’t read them in advance. WHERE DOES ALL MY TIME GO? – THE TIME BANDITS AND TRAPS A time bandit is a work practice, attitude or behaviour that leads to ineffective working practices or your time getting stolen or expropriated away from your core priorities and frittered on less important activities. 34 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co.uk/bookstore. Time management Epicurus and the pleasure principle Think about your own time management bandits and traps, do you see any patterns? One common pattern is to put the fun, exciting, interesting, easy things ? rst, and put off doing the boring, dull, dif? cult tasks until later. It is a kind of pleasure principle – going for the short-term gains, surrendering to wants and desires as they arise – immediately. Epicurus, the philosopher who is attributed with setting up the foundations for a pleasure principle, believed in following desires. However, he is often mistakenly thought to have been a slave to avarice and pleasure, indulging himself in whatever desire arose at a given moment. This is not actually true. Epicurus followed a simple life, one of healthy food, friendship and good company, freedom and thought, not an undisciplined response to every whim and fancy. In relation to your own work or study, following the Epicurian principle will lead you to doing things you enjoy instead of focusing on your priorities. It is a mistake to think that taking the easy route will improve things in the long run. In reality, giving in to the pleasure principle in the short term results in a mess later on, because over time what happens is the accumulation of a whole mountain of tasks that have been ignored. This can lead to misery, anxiety and depression. A lot of thought and planning went into Epicurus’s way of life, and creating time for a balanced, enjoyable life takes planning and selfdiscipline. The last-minute rush and adrenaline junky Some people like to live fast and furiously, and so working in a calm systematic way can seem very boring. Waiting for a burst of energy, or the adrenaline rush that comes with the fear of a deadline looming can become a way of life, but does usually mean that when the job actually gets done, it is done in a haphazard panicky way, leaving the person exhausted after late-night working and long hours in order to ? nish it on time. In the long run health can be affected, as the ? ght or ? ight impulse that triggers adrenaline is intended for moments of danger, not a lifetime of stress. Hamlet: the procrastinator ‘To be or not to be . . . ’ – ‘should I start this paper or go and deal with those statistics, I don’t know! ’ It isn’t noble to play Hamlet unless you are Lawrence Olivier! If it can’t be faced now, it might be worse later! What is more, as well as getting nothing done, the agony is repeated over and over again, and usually by tomorrow there is no change except the increased anxiety of another day gone by without completing the task. There are different reasons for procrastination and prevarication: not having the energy (which is represented by the adrenaline junky above), not having a starting point or the right information (but will you have the information tomorrow?), or being indecisive over what exactly to get on and do. All that happens is that work piles up. It’s all too much However, for some people, being busy is a way of life. They may ask themselves: – Where does all my time go? – Why are there not enough hours in the day? Typically these people then fool themselves with the thought ‘Well, this is just a busy period, once I’ve got this assignment or deadline over then life will be easier and I can relax’. This is ? ne if true, but often one deadline out of the way can just open someone up to a new 35 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Personal Effectiveness deadline, as they rush from one hectic task to the next. Sometimes this is self-generated: they can’t help but take on more and more and more. Another way they fool themselves is to say ‘I’m a no-limit person. I can keep on taking on more and more and more’. No one is superman or superwoman, there are only 1,440 minutes in a day, 1,000 when we deduct sleeping, washing, dressing, eating, etc, etc, etc. In our lives we probably spend six months waiting for red traf? c lights to change, two years looking for things, 24 years asleep . . .. There is only so much time left, and time is not in? nitely elastic, we do have limits. After all, no one ever said on their deathbed: I wish I’d spent more time at the of? ce! The headless chicken: action without thought There may be other reasons for taking on too much work, being too busy or feeling driven. Some people may be working hard but without having clear priorities, and without planning. Spending much too much time on things that are not at all important. Giving the illusion of working hard but not working productively. The butter? y: ? itting from task to task Helen arrives at work, puts her coat on the door peg, sits down and turns on the computer. She intends to spend the morning writing the proposal for the new performance appraisal system – a very important part of her job. But ? rst she listens to her telephone messages and realises Gerald wants her to produce some ? gures for a meeting the following week. She accesses her computer to pull out the ? gures, and notices she has 21 e-mails, and begins trawling through these. The ? rst few she just looks at and leaves open to come back to later, the sixth one asks her to give some dates for a meeting and she opens her diary to look at dates, and sees that for one of the dates she has a presentation to give on that day. Oh she must remember to take the ? les home for preparing the presentation so she can do it at the weekend. She gets up and opens her ? ling cabinet to retrieve them . . Oh dear, she is feeling rather giddy, .. . . she hasn’t got anything done and she has been at work an hour already . . .. Oh she feels so confused, she thinks . . . I’d better go and get a coffee .. .. One result of not planning or sticking to priorities can be the ‘butter? y’. This is someone who ? its from task to task in a downward spiral of panic and anxiety, getting in a mess, never getting the boost and closure of completion. Many managers have to be butter? ies, for example Mintzberg (1973) and Kotter (1982) showed that managers spend nine minutes or less on 50 per cent of their activities, are subject to constant interruptions and that management is a very fragmented activity. Good time management brings order to this fragmentation, rather than exacerbates it. Interruptions, interruptions There are two types of interruptions: interruptions from others that distract us from our work, and ‘self’ interruptions, ways in which we distract ourselves from our intended activities. What is your working environment like – quiet and easy to concentrate in, or noisy and busy? Some people work in open-plan of? ce environments where they cannot help but get drawn into conversations with others. Think how you manage your interruptions, what happens if you are concentrating on something really important and somebody starts casually chatting to you as they pass your desk or door? 36 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co.uk/bookstore. Time management The proliferation of communication technologies has meant there are a myriad of ways in which we can be interrupted at any time of day. The ding of a new e-mail arriving in the computer, the ringing telephone, the mobile phone, just ensure you are available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Take the telephone – this is designed for people to contact you when it is convenient for them, not necessarily for you. Some people spend a long time on the phone, not getting to the point, getting sidetracked into idle talk. How long are your phone calls, could they be shorter? E-mail is also a tempter. In some roles people are receiving 50–100 e-mails a day and if every time one arrives on the computer they stopped what they were doing to look at it, it would never be possible to concentrate. The escapologist: IT and other escapes However, it isn’t just the requirements of others that interrupt us – we also interrupt ourselves. For example, maybe by not being able to resist sur? ng the Net for another couple of hours, just having a look at a couple more search paths for a holiday or outing. Some are self-interrupters, maybe ? nding it dif? cult to concentrate they just have to go off for another coffee or go and chat to someone else, because they can’t quite get down to it. This can be even worse at home – when you spot the washing or ironing or vacuuming out of the corner of your eye. It is amazing how you can suddenly feel the urge to do a bit of gardening or even jobs you normally hate like cleaning the cooker suddenly seem compelling when you are trying to get down to work on a challenging report. The doormat: yes, yes, yes. One problem can be unassertiveness, or unwillingness to say ‘no’: This may be because of low internal self-esteem, wanting to ‘please others’ in order to feel good, or even being too scared to say no. Ironically always saying ‘yes’ may just mean a person is taken for granted, not necessarily respected and liked. In the end, they can cause more problems for other people, because they become ill or are too busy to do everything to which they have committed, which can be very irritating for others. Presenteeism Sam was always ? rst into the of? ce every day and last to leave in the evening. Everyone commented on how committed he was, what a hardworking member of staff. One day Sarah wondered what Sam was actually working on all day at the computer screen, she wandered up to his desk and looked over his shoulder, and found he was playing solitaire! Being at a desk doesn’t mean the same as working – it is passing time instead of spending time. Sometimes the most effective people are those you don’t see, maybe they ? nd somewhere quiet to work where they don’t get interrupted. Effective people don’t necessarily need to impress on others how hard they work – their output is more important than the appearance of work. Some of? ce environments, however, encourage presenteeism – focusing performance evaluation on time spent at the desk, clockwatching, rather than on the quality of work. Wasted spaces It has been calculated that people lose up to 20 per cent of their time waiting. All that time spent sitting on the train into work, or waiting for the printer to ? nish, or a lecture or meeting to start are wasted periods that could have been used to complete a small task, or even begin a bigger one. Do you sit and stare realising you don’t have any work at hand for such 37 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Personal Effectiveness occasions, or does it even occur to you in the ? rst place to ? ll these spaces? Sometimes a commuter journey is the ideal space in which to plan the day, write out a schedule, or maybe even concentrate on reading an article or report. Finishing a small task, such as ? lling in a form, or even beginning a larger task can be slotted into these moments. Perfectionist The perfectionist pays attention to detail, agonises over every decision, every word in a report. They must get it right. But what is the point if it is too late, or they have ignored several other things – is it all really necessary? Not all tasks have to be done to the same high standard: writing a routine e-mail for example – does it really matter if the grammar is correct? Paper mountains Some people allow a mountain of paper to pile up on their desk, around their ? oor – a trail of paper that doesn’t allow them to be able to ? nd anything they need. They can waste lots of time trying to ?nd things, and the paper mountain doesn’t make for good of? ce sculpture, it festers and exudes stress and incompetence. I’m in a meeting! Consider the costs of 10 people in a one-hour meeting at ? 50 per hour each plus all the overheads and opportunity costs, the time spent travelling, preparation – is it worth it? Worse still are those meetings where people are unprepared, there is no agenda; the chair allows the discussion on trivial items to go on for ages without coming to any decisions. Heather was chairing a students union General Purposes Committee meeting. The meeting discussed for an hour the subject of what colour the new minibus should be – the Labour Society rep suggested red, the Conservative Group rep blue, the Liberal democrat member orange, and the chap from the Greens said they shouldn’t have a minibus at all! Eventually the meeting ran out of time and the main item on the agenda – what to do about the student debt situation never got discussed! Poorly run meetings are not only a waste of time, but also very demoralising. D-I-Y enthusiast. The D-I-Y enthusiast thinks they can do everything themselves, never giving a thought to delegation or sharing the work with others. Moreover, when they get into trouble, they don’t go and ask for help, they soldier on miserably, not getting anywhere except lost and desperate. If you have too much to do, or are stuck, do you look to see how the work can be allocated differently, do you call in for help or the support of others? Why oh why do D-I-Y? Refusing to ask for help may be due to lack of assertiveness, but it may also be arrogance – the belief that no one can do it as well, so it is better done singlehanded. Other people will never learn the skills if they are not given a chance to start. Delegation is not just a downward action, it can also move upwards, for example where something really isn’t a person’s job maybe they need to refer it back. THE CONSEQUENCES Poor time management is one of the greatest sources of managerial stress. It leads to feelings of incompetence and anxiety. The debilitating symptoms and consequences of stress 38 A free sample chapter from Personal Effectiveness by Diana Winstanley. Published by the CIPD. Copyright  © CIPD 2005 All rights reserved; no part of this excerpt may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. If you would like to purchase this book please visit www. cipd. co. uk/bookstore. Time management are discussed more fully in Chapter 9. It also leads to crisis management – where someone responds to whoever is pushing hardest or shouting the loudest. The working environment is likely to be cluttered, with piles of papers on the desk which heaves with awful tasks represented by bits of paper and post-its that decompose or fall off onto the ? oor. It doesn’t just inconvenience the person creating this muddle – it inconveniences others who have to wait for work that is late, or shoddy work that has been done in a rushed way, or invitations that haven’t been responded to. Poor time managers may also feel indispensable; so they can’t take a holiday or a break, because no one can manage without them. Given the choice it is unlikely you would decide to work in this way. But you are always given the choice, and the trick is to take back control and make choices that will make you better time managers. But why don’t you do that already? It is because poor time management is a habit. ARISTOTLE AND THE HABIT OF THE GOOD LIFE It is quite likely that in identifying your own time bandits, you already had an idea what they were. You may even have a good idea of what you should be doing differently. This chapter is not about knowing what to do, it is about putting thought into action, and this requires behavioural change which is a bit trickier to effect. Aristotle talked about the habit of the good life. The good life is not an abstract idea, it is a habit that is nurtured and acted upon over a period of time. Time management is a habit. It is likely you are accustomed to your habits, may even be comfortable with the way you do things, and they won’t be easy to change, because that requires effort and persistence. Therefore it won’t be enough if this chapter merely identi? es for you what you should be doing differently. You have to break a habit, create a habit, and persevere to maintain it. Below are some good habits, but for them to work and guarantee you more time, you will need to put them into practice. When we start something new, it is easier to take one step at a time, building up competence and new habits gradually. The personal contract at the end of this chapter will enable you to plan your behaviour change. Glance at this contract now, and you will see it requires you to identify three changes you intend to make, and to put the ? rst step into practice in the following week. As you read through the good habits think which one would be most relevant for you to start with, which will give you the biggest gain, and which relates most closely to the problems you identi?