Published by The Royal Bank of Canada

Making the Most of Time

Time is the most precious asset we possess,because once we have spent it, there isn’t

any more of it. It takes organization to usetime wisely. But isn’t it worth the effort ifit means getting what we want from life?

[] "Dost thou love life?" wrote Benjamin Frank-lin. "Then do not squander time, for that is thestuff life is made of." He went on to warn that losttime is never found again.

Though we are all well aware of the truth ofthose words, few of us translate our knowledgeinto action. The value of time is "in everybody’smouth but in few people’s practice," as Franklin’sEnglish contemporary, Lord Chesterfield, wrote.

It has been said that time is what we want mostbut use worst. The majority of people today wouldprobably agree with that statement. After com-plaining about how little time there is, they wouldadmit that they could put their time to better use.

People are inclined to be a little afraid of time.They have been brought up to view it as a power-ful and rather sinister force of nature. ThomasCarlyle lent it a typically ominous touch when hewrote of "the illimitable, silent, never-restingthing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent,like an all-embracing tide."

"Time stops for no man," we often say. Themessage here is fatalistic. Time is relentless andinexorable; it is futile to fight it; it will always pre-vail over our puny efforts to bring it under control.

But there is another traditional way of perceiv-ing time which indicates that it can indeed be con-trolled, and that is as a valuable personal posse-ssion. Our common figures of speech are sprinkled

with references to time as something that belongsto us -- e.g.: "I’ve got lots of time."

An old Italian philosopher said that time washis estate. When you think of it, it is an estate ofconsiderable magnitude. The average life span inCanada today is roughly 71 years, which adds upto 25,915 days or 621,960 hours. Given that a largeproportion of that must be spent on necessities suchas sleeping, eating and earning a living, we arenonetheless left with a sizeable sum to call our own.

The parallel with an estate extends only so far,however. If we were to fritter away a financialinheritance, there would always be a possibility ofreplacing at least some of it. But, if we live to 100,each of us has been allotted an absolutely fixedamount of time, and there is no chance of begging,borrowing or stealing any more.

If we were told there was an unbreakable limitto the amount of money we had to spend -- thatonce it was gone, we would never get anotherpenny -- it would naturally make us very carefulabout how we disposed of it. We would do our bestto ensure that the finite amount available to uswas directed into getting what we really wantedout of life.

Yet, faced with the same situation with respectto time, most of us cling to our profligate spendinghabits. Taking deliberate steps to control ourspending is somehow seen as unnatural, sapping

life of its charming spontaneity. We shrink frombecoming creatures of the clock.

Perhaps this is because we associate the organiza-tion of time with business. The techniques for con-serving time were originally designed to increaseproductivity, making people into more efficientmanagers and employees.

Able time managers get theirwork done with little strain

So when we think of deliberate measures to puttime to more productive use, we also think of beingmade to work harder. In fact, this is the veryreverse of what modern time management tech-niques are all about.

Far from making for harder work, the system-atic allocation of time makes work easier. Theworld of poor time management consists ofscreaming deadlines, nagging problems, irritatingharassments and unpleasant surprises. Wen-organized time managers get their work done withless wear and tear on their emotions and lessstrain on their health.

Still, many of us seem to feel that organizingour time might prove addictive, turning us into"workaholics" who need a regular fix of 14-hourdays. Nothing could be further from the minds ofmodern time consultants. "Longer hours usuallydecrease effectiveness and ultimately waste time,"one wrote.

Effective time managers are the ones who leavethe office just at quitting time with light brief-cases. Because they do not have unsettledproblems hanging over their heads, they enjoyrestful nights and uninterrupted evenings.Instead of stopping them from whiling away thehours, time management has given them morehours to while away.

Its underlying purpose is to spring loose more"disposable" time which may be directed towardsmeeting one’s life objectives. These objectivesmight include anything from building a cottage tocoaching a championship Pee Wee team to seeingthe Taj Mahal.

For some, of course, the aim might be to amassa sum of money or working their way to the heightsof the executive suite. There is nothing wrong withthis as long as their allocation of time is healthilybalanced. As Walter Kiechel III recently wrote inFortune magazine: "What the workaholic forgetsand the would-be manager of time should alwayskeep in mind is what one might be doing outsidethe office. Possibilities include walking out in theweather of sunlit days, and storm; watching the sea-sons change; seeing children grow and maybe evenhelping the process along; talking in candlelight,perhaps over a meal, with attractive persons, pos-sibly including one’s spouse; and being there tosolace a troubled friend, or child, or aging parent.If you consistently choose work over these alterna-tives, then you really do have a problem managingtime."

In any case, the principles of time managementapply to all of life, not just the relatively small por-tion of it that is spent in the workplace. Thoughthey are commonly taught to managers and super-visors, the techniques for conserving time workequally well for homemakers, students, self-employed people, retirees, and anybody else whoseeks to get the most out of life.

The most profitable lessonthe chairman ever learned

What are those techniques? The first step in anypersonal campaign to gain control of time is thesame as the first step in a military campaign --scouting out the position. Consultants suggest thatyou keep a log of how you spent one whole week (orlonger, if the week is atypical), making an entry ofwhat you did every waking hour. This will identifythe interruptions, needless activities and other"time leaks" which you can then take steps toavoid.

Once you have a fairly precise idea of how youspend your time, you can move on to what theexperts call "prioritizing." This concept comes from

the legendary story of a meeting between thepioneer management consultant Ivy Lee and thechairman of Bethlehem Steel, Charles Schwab, inthe 1920s. "Show me a way to get more things donewith my time, and I’ll pay you anything within rea-son," Schwab said.

Lee handed the tycoon a blank sheet of paper andtold him to take a few minutes that evening to writedown the six most important tasks he had to do inorder of priority. The next day he was to work onitem number one until he had finished it, then passon to item two, and so on down the list. Schwab wasto tear up the list and make a new one at the endof every day.

"Don’t be concerned if you only finish one ortwo," Lee advised. "You’ll be working on the mostimportant ones anyway. If you can’t finish them bythis method, you couldn’t have by any othermethod, either; and without some system, you’dprobably not even have decided which was the mostimportant... Send me a cheque for what you thinkit’s worth." A few weeks later Schwab mailed hima cheque for $25,000, with a note saying that it wasthe most profitable lesson he had ever learned.

The purpose of prioritizing is not so much todetermine what is important as to eliminate whatis not. On examination, you may find that some ofthe routines you practise are not worth the time youput into them. Lists of priorities should be checkedagainst a list of long-term objectives. Any task thatdoes not advance toward these goals is of question-able priority.

The question to ask is: Canit be done by someone else?

In the hustle and bustle of the working day, itis difficult to determine which tasks are more impor-tant than others. It is therefore advisable to adopta system which makes you stop and think abouteach item. Some busy executives use colour-codedfile folders to sort out their priorities -- red for whatmust be done immediately, green for what must bedone within the day, yellow for what must be donewithin the week.

If we spend too much time on inconsequentialmatters because we overestimate how importantthey are, we also do so because of our own psycho-logy. It is human nature to do the quick and easytasks before the harder ones. We are quite capableof deluding ourselves about what really matters.Anyone who has ever been a student can recall howmuch more important it can seem to do the shop-ping or repair a bicycle than to sit down and writea term paper or study for an exam.

The trouble with doing even legitimate small jobsfirst is that they tend to multiply, taking time awayfrom work on long-range goals and planning."Lesser matters will outnumber and submerge moreimportant ones if handled in order of occurrence,"Ross A. Webber wrote in his book, Time andManagement.

In the real world, however, it is not so simple tostick to the big important things of life because thesmall ones keep interfering. Crises erupt that dis-tract us from working towards the things that reallycount.

When he was supreme commander of the alliedforces in Europe in World War II, Dwight D. Eisen-hower developed a formula for dealing with criseswhile still concentrating on his prime objectives. Heinsisted that nothing be brought to him unless hisaides had decided that it was both urgent andimportant. If it was not urgent, it could wait; if itwas not important, it could be delegated to some-body else.

Though ordinary citizens do not have a large mili-tary staff at their beck and call, they can apply thesame criteria when faced with a seemingly urgentproblem. The questions to ask are: "Is this sourgently important that it supersedes the impor-tance of what I am now doing?" And, "Does thisrequire my personal attention, or can it be done justas well by somebody else?"

If a problem does prove to be of surpassingurgency, it automatically leap-frogs to the top ofyour priority list. This means that you should workon it until it is finished. After that, you can turnyour attention back to the item that was formerlyfirst on your list.

But here again the real world intervenes. It is allvery well to say that we must systematically go

about disposing of our priorities, but our time is rid-dled with interruptions. No wonder we can never getthe big things done.

The fact is, however, that we need not be inter-rupted nearly as much as we are. We have a ten-dency to invite interruptions to avoid having towork on difficult matters. We will even interruptourselves by dropping a major piece of work half-way through to do a minor one.

People leave themselves open to trivial demandson their time by being too available. A mother, forinstance, may never have time to follow studies orsatisfying hobbies because she has built up theexpectation in her children that she will always bethere to do the slightest little thing -- which notonly thwarts her desires but spoils the children.Managers who follow an "open door" policy maybe providing a forum for time-wasting chit-chat; or,worse, for subordinates to come in and dump theirproblems on the boss. These nuisances can beavoided by simply closing the door.

"Quiet time": The key to doingthe things that really count

We are more likely to be interrupted by telephonecalls than by anything else. Having a secretary (or,if you are at home or work by yourself, a telephoneanswering machine) pick up calls will cut down onthe distraction. It will often be found in businessthat a secretary or subordinate can deal with acaller’s problem before it reaches the manager’sdesk.

A fixed period should be set aside every day forresponding to all but urgent calls; the same goes fordisposing of essential paperwork and having meet-ings. A period of "quiet time" during which you canconcentrate on priority projects is essential to goodtime management. Champions of this practice claimthat a well-organized person can accomplish threehours’ normal work in one "quiet hour."

Concentration, however, should not be confinedto periods of solitude. Many people waste time at

meetings and face-to-face interviews by being toobusy in their own minds. In effect, they distractthemselves from getting matters settled quickly byfailing to focus on the questions before them. It ispossible to train yourself to sweep your mind of itspreoccupations and give all your attention to theissue of the moment. Top executives deal with thefragmentation of their time due to demands for deci-sions by cultivating the knack of complete concen-tration.

Greater control means greaterfreedom when it comes to time

Various methods have been advanced fororganizing routine chores so that they take up aminimum of time. Keeping a clear desk means thatyou do not eat up minutes searching for informa-tion in piles of paper. Good time managers try tomake it a rule never to touch a piece of paper morethan once. They answer correspondence right away.

All sorts of other ideas have been hatched for con-serving time in one’s day-to-day life. These includesleeping half an hour less a night, only reading theheadlines in newspapers, memorizing all the phonenumbers you call regularly, and giving away yourtelevision set. Such drastic measures are not foreveryone. The richly-bewhiskered George BernardShaw once said that he had written several playsin the time he had saved by not shaving. But all mendo not want to wear beards; besides, some say theyget their best ideas before the shaving mirror.

The tips contained in "how-to" books on organiz-ing time found in public libraries can help to set peo-ple on the right track, but they must work out theirown schemes to fit their own personalities and cir-cumstances. The exact methods are less importantthan the recognition that time is their most valu-able resource, and that it should be allocated accord-ing to a plan which puts first things first. The para-dox of time management, as of other facets of life,is that greater control means greater freedom to dothe things we want to do. By making the most ofour time, we can go a long way towards making themost of our lives.