Question-Week ending Sunday 03/16/03:
Describe how strongly you believe that "There Are Incredible Benefits To Be Enjoyed" by establishing and maintaining an efficient Time Management System. Please read our Poll Commentary before taking this poll.
Pre-Poll Commentary:
Time Management and Goal Planning go hand in hand. They are both critical skills that play on each others strengths. It is kind of difficult to carry out any goal if you are a poor manager of time. Likewise, if you have no goals, why bother worrying about managing your time?
As in goal setting, it is critical to figure out, list, discuss and evaluate the many benefits you will enjoy from the implementation of a better Time Management System. There are probably hundreds of books, audio tapes, videos, live seminars, etc., that are available to teach you how to manage your time better. However, all the training and information in the world will not help you to commit to a better system, if you are not totally convinced that there will be huge rewards in return.
Time Management begins with the knowledge of one knowing exactly what happens with the 24 hours they are allotted with each day. You need to "know where your time is going," in order to make corrections and improvements. If someone ever invents a device that can track our daily activities automatically, giving us a detailed minute by minute report of how we "spend" or "invest" our time, the general population of the world would be in shock.
Whenever I travel on major highways during rush hours or holidays and see cars and trucks in bumper to bumper traffic lined up for miles, I think about the millions of man/woman hours being wasted away. The only people who might benefit from commuting to work are those that listen to educational audio tapes and utilize that time to learn and grow their knowledge base. Then take that knowledge and parlay it into a better profession where you don't have to commute back and forth to work.
However, if you are SERIOUS about getting a handle on managing your time better, you need to start with an awareness of exactly what you are doing with your most precious asset each day. I tried this many years ago, and learned enough from the exercise to change my life forever.
After you know "where your time goes", you need to perform some restructuring surgery. If you are not already using a PIM (Personal Information Manager) or Contact Manager like "ACT,"
"Goldmine," or a comparable product, then you should. These software programs give you the power to begin scheduling and tracking what you "NEED" to do to achieve your objectives, rather than leave your objectives to chance. Over the next several weeks we will be discussing the use of these PIM's in more detail, as we illustrate how they apply to achieving the many Benefits to be enjoyed from their use. Stay Tune to the following seven weeks of polls listed below:
- Benefit 1 Peace of Mind: Starts Sunday Mar 16, 2003
- Benefit 2 Self-Knowledge: Starts Sunday Mar 23, 2003
- Benefit 3 Health and Energy: Starts Sunday Mar 30, 2003
- Benefit 4 Loving Relationships: Starts Sunday Apr 6, 2003
- Benefit 5 Financial Rewards: Starts Sunday Apr 13, 2003
- Benefit 6 Achieving Worthy Goals: Starts Sunday Apr 20, 2003
- Benefit 7 Total Personal Fulfillment:Starts Sunday Apr 27, 2003
For this week, please describe how strongly you believe that "There Are Incredible Benefits To Be Enjoyed" by establishing and maintaining an efficient Time Management System. This poll will end on Sunday 03/16/03, when the results will be displayed.
Results:
- 49% voted-Extreme Belief in Incredible benefits from TM
- 30% voted-Strong Belief in Incredible benefits from TM
- 19% voted-Fair Belief in Incredible benefits from TM
- 01% voted-Not Convinced in Incredible benefits from TM
- 00% voted-No Belief in Incredible benefits from TM
Post-Poll Commentary:
From our poll, 79% of our respondents Strongly believe that "There Are Incredible Benefits To Be Enjoyed" by establishing and maintaining an efficient Time Management System. That's a pretty impressive number. I for one, am an Extreme 100% believer.
I am sure that even though our respondents had strong beliefs, very few actually took the time to write down what they did for a week and then analyze how they could do some reconstructive surgery. Actions are always more difficult to carry out than just thinking about something or agreeing to a statement. However, you must know "where your time goes" before you can do something about it. If you haven't listed where your time went last week, it's not too late to do it this week. If a week is too long, then try a couple of days for starters. But you must have this knowledge to move on.
I think if we took a nationwide poll of our entire country, most of the people who "would respond" would agree that they would like to manage their time better. That's only a nice wish if further action isn't taken.
We will try to make a good enough case to "take action" by presenting the many benefits you will enjoy from being a good time manager. Stay tuned and get excited. This can be a life changing experience.