your actions will create within you the feelings that are consistent with them.
This means that when you act as if your time was extremely valuable, the
action causes you to feel like a more valuable and important person. By
managing your time well, you actually increase your self-esteem, and by
extension, you become better at whatever you are doing.
The very act of living your life consistent with your values, and using your
time effectively and well, improves your self-image, builds your self-esteem
and self-confidence, and increases your self-respect.
2. Strive for Mastery
The second factor that affects your self-esteem is your sense of being in
control of your life and work, your feeling of mastery in whatever you do.
Everything that you learn about time management, and then apply in your
work, causes you to feel more in control of yourself and your life. As a
result, you feel more effective and efficient. You feel more productive and
powerful. Every increase in your feeling of effectiveness and productivity
increases your self-esteem and improves your sense of personal well-being.
3. Know What You Want
The third factor that directly affects your self-esteem is your current goals,
and the activities that you take to achieve those goals. The more your goals
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and your activities are congruent with your values, the better you feel. When
you are working at something that you believe in, and which is consistent
with your natural talents and abilities, like yourself more, and you do your
work better. We will talk about goals in greater depth in the next chapter.
Three Steps to Performance Improvement
These then are the three keys to the “Psychology of Time Management.”
First, you determine your values, and then you resolve to live your life
consistent with those values. Second, you dedicate yourself to mastery, to
becoming absolutely excellent at what you do. Third, you make sure that
your goals and activities are congruent with your true values and
convictions.
When you do these three things, and manage your time well in the pursuit of
value-based goals, you feel terrific about yourself all day long. You will
have more energy and enthusiasm. You will be more confident and
committed. You will be more competent and creative. You will become
more persistent and determined.
When you manage your time well, you will get more done, and of a higher
quality. You will enjoy higher levels of self-esteem and self-respect. You
will have a greater sense of personal pride. Practicing good time
management techniques will even have positive effect on your personality
and your relationships.
Time Power
The quality of your life is largely determined by the quality of your time
management. The better and more effective you are at managing the minutes
and hours of your day, which are the building blocks of your life, the more
you will like and respect yourself, and the better will be every aspect of your
inner and outer life.
Twelve Proven Principles for Peak Performance
Here are twelve proven principles you can practice every day to get more out
of yourself and improve your results in everything you do.
Principle Number One: Time management enables you to increase the
value of your contribution. Self-esteem comes from the knowledge that you
are putting more in to your life and work than you are taking out, that you
are contributing more to your work than you are getting back. The greater
the contribution you feel that you are making to your company and to your
family, the greater will be your self-esteem. Good time management enables
you to greatly improve your ability to contribute more and more value to
whatever you are doing.
Principle Number Two: Your rewards, both tangible and intangible, will
always be equal to the value of your service to other people. The more you
put in, the more you get out. By the Law of Sowing and Reaping, time
management enables you to sow more and better, and therefore to reap more
and better in every area of your life. If you want to increase the quality and
quantity of your rewards, you need only seek ways to increase the value of
your service. This is very much under your control.
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Principle Number Three: Good time management requires that you see
yourself as a “factory.” A factory has three phases of production. First of
all, it has inputs of raw materials, time, labor, money and resources. These
are the “factors of production” that are necessary to create the end product.
Second, inside the factory there are activities that take place. These are the
production activities or work that are necessary to produce the product or
service. The efficiency of operations within the factory determines the
productivity of the factory, and the productivity of each person involved in
the production process.
Third, what emerges from the factory are the outputs or production of the
factory. The value of the factory is determined by the quality and quantity of
its outputs relative to its inputs. The central purpose of the management of
the factory is to increase the quality and quantity of outputs.
One main difference between highly effective people and people who seem
to produce very little is that top performers always focus on outputs or
results. Average performers focus on inputs. Top performers focus on
accomplishments; medium or low performers focus on activities.
Good time management requires that you continually ask yourself, “What
outputs are expected of me? What am I expected to produce? Why exactly
am I on the payroll?”
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The more you focus on the required outputs of your position, the better and
more effective you will become. As a result, you will create greater value
and make a more important contribution. You will become more productive
and therefore more valuable to yourself and to your company.
Principle Number Four: Everything you accomplish, or fail to accomplish,
depends upon your ability to use your time to its best advantage. Your levels
of achievement and performance, in every area, are determined by your
ability to think through and to apply the very best time management
techniques available to you. You can only increase the quality and quantity
of your results by increasing your ability to use your time effectively.
Principle Number Five: Time is the scarcest resource of accomplishment.
In America today, the biggest problem most people have is “time poverty.”
People may have money and material success, but they don’t have enough
time to enjoy them. We are short of time in almost every area of our lives.
Time is inelastic; it cannot be stretched. Time is indispensable; all work and
accomplishment requires it. Time is irreplaceable; there is no substitute for
it. And time is perishable; it cannot be saved, preserved or stored. Once it is
gone, it is gone forever.
Principle Number Six: The practice of time management skills develops
judgment, foresight, self-reliance and self-discipline. These are the qualities
of leadership and character. It is time management that enables you to get
things done, and your ability to accomplish the tasks that are assigned to you
is the chief measure of your value to your company, and to your world.
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Principle Number Seven: A focus on time management forces you to be
intensely result-oriented. Result-orientation is the key quality of men and
women. Your ability to focus single-mindedly on the most important results
required of you is the fastest and surest way to get paid more, promoted
faster and to eventually achieve financial independence.
Principle Number Eight: Time management enables you to work smarter,
not just harder. Many people who are failures actually work harder than
successful people. But they produce less in the hours they work because of
poor personal and time management skills.
Principle Number Nine: Good time management is a source of energy,
enthusiasm and a positive mental attitude. The more productive you
become, the more positive you feel about yourself. As you see yourself
accomplishing large quantities of work, you actually experience a
continuous inflow of additional energy that enables you to accomplish even
more.
Principle Number Ten: You grow as a person in direct proportion to the
demands that you place on yourself. The self-discipline of time management
builds character, confidence and an unshakable belief in yourself and your
abilities.
Principle Number Eleven: Lasting motivation only comes from a feeling of
achievement and accomplishment. The more you get done, the better you
feel about yourself, and the more eager you become to do even more.
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Principle Number Twelve: Now, this minute, is all the time you have. If
you manage yourself minute by minute, the hours and days will take care of
themselves. The more tightly you manage your time, the more guaranteed
you are that it will translate into a great life, hallmarked by purpose, power,
control and worthwhile accomplishments.
The Seven Practices of Time Power
There are seven methods that you can use to help you to develop the habits
of time management. The more you think about and practice these methods,
the more rapidly you will program yourself to be efficient, effective and
highly productive.
First, remember that your self-image determines your performance. You
always perform on the outside in a manner consistent with the picture you
have of yourself on the inside. Practice visualizing and imagining yourself as
you want to be, not as you may have been in the past.
You can actually change your self-image permanently by repeatedly
visualizing yourself as highly efficient and effective. See yourself as
absolutely excellent in time and personal management skills. Play this
picture over and over again on the screen of your mind until it is accepted as
a new set of commands by your subconscious mind. At that point, effective
time management will become easy and automatic for you.
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Second, remember that new habit pattern formation takes about 21 days of
practice and repetition. It has taken you your entire lifetime to become the
person you are today, with the time management habits you have at this
moment. It takes time and commitment to change, and for your subconscious
mind to accept the new commands, pictures and affirmations as your new
operating instructions for your personal behavior. Be patient with yourself.
Don’t expect to change everything at once.
Third, promise yourself that you are going to become excellent at time
management. Promise yourself that you are going to be punctual, and that
you are going to concentrate on your most important tasks. Then, promise
others that you are going to be more effective and efficient in the future.
When you tell others, and promise others, that you are going to become
better at the way you use your time, it makes it easier for you to make a firm
commitment to yourself to follow through on these behaviors. When you
know that other people are watching you to see if you will do what you said
you would, you tend to be far more disciplined and firm with yourself.
Fourth, in developing the habits of time management, start in just one area
where poor time management is holding you back. Don’t try to change
everything at once. Change just one habit or activity where you know that
improvement could be very helpful to you. As you discipline yourself to
improve in a single area, you will find yourself becoming more productive in
other areas at the same time.
Time Power
Fifth, launch your new time management habit strongly. Never allow an
exception once you have decided that you are going to become excellent in a
particular behavior. If you decide to be punctual for every appointment,
discipline yourself to be early every single time until the new habit of
punctuality becomes a permanent part of your behavior. If you decide to
start early and concentrate on your most valuable tasks, discipline yourself
to do this every single day for at least three weeks until it becomes easy and
natural for you to start early on your highest priority. Never let yourself off
the hook. Never make excuses or rationalizations for slacking off. Resolve to
repeat the new behavior every time until the new habit is firmly entrenched.
Sixth, use the “trial and success” method rather than the “trial and error”
method. The trial and success method requires that you learn how to succeed
by failing, and then by learning from your mistakes.
Analyze your reasons for poor time management. Stand back and look at the
areas in your life where your time is the most poorly managed, and ask
yourself, “Why do I behave this way in this area?”
Ask yourself, “What are the obstacles to my operating more efficiently in
this area?” Take some time to reflect on your current behaviors and think
about what you are doing. This will give you the awareness to make the
changes that you need to make to be the efficient and effective person that
you are capable of becoming.
Seventh, and perhaps the most important of all, is for you to absolutely
believe that you can and will become outstanding at time management.
Time Power
The Law of Belief says that, “Your beliefs become your realities.” The more
intensely you believe that you can and will become excellent at time
management, the more rapidly this becomes your reality. If you hold to your
belief long enough and hard enough, it will eventually materialize as your
new behaviors with regard to time.
The good news is that time management is a skill, like typing or riding a
bike. Like any other skill, it is learnable with practice and repetition. You
have the ability, right now, to develop the habits of excellent time
management in every area of your life. It is simply a matter of getting
started, and then persisting until your new time management habits are
