Time management has become big business these days. Many companies offer great time management tools to manage your day and make you more productive. Google returns 227,000,000 pages in response to a query on the topic of time management; now with this article: Google search result 227,000,001 and even more when you read it. At the turn of the last century, Ivy Lee gave Charles Schwab some of the most effective time management advice of all time.

time management systems

Books, seminars, and entire courses have been done on time management – you can easily spend thousands of dollars on this topic trying to get the ultimate edge in learning the latest time management skills. I usually get a headache and misty eyes when I delve into these things.

Much of this information and time management systems are good, but as Solomon said, in Ecclesiastes, about the things of the world: “everything is vanity… they are vanity and affliction of the spirit”. This is really what time management systems can become. Our society is obsessed with the idea of ​​squeezing every ounce of time, to the point where it’s counterproductive. Trying to squeeze productivity out of your time is an important aspiration, time management is one of the keys to success, and time is the only asset in your life that you cannot add, you can only make its use more efficient.

Many people looking to maximize their time get planners or electronic devices with built-in planners and often end up feeling like a slave to the systems they buy, these systems causing more stress instead of being the stress reliever they should be. . They end up trying to schedule too much or maybe an element of procrastination has crept in and the items keep moving from one date to the next and piling up. The planner becomes like an old friend who has also made promises and yet failed to keep them. After a while they start to avoid the planner and end up in the drawer and go back to a simple appointment calendar.

Facilitate time management

My advice is to make time management easier. There are big dividends to be gained from your time management activities, but by putting one of the systems in place. But putting on the whole uniform at once and keeping the buttons polished when he’s used to running free and naked (in a sense of time) is likely to lead to his rebellion and leave him in a few months.

Get Started Easy: Napoleon Hill writes about Ivy Lee, who is considered the father of modern public relations. Lee was doing a job for Charles Schwab, the boss of Bethlehem Steel. Schwab told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective, helping them make better use of their time. Lee handed Schwab a blank sheet of paper and told him that in a few minutes she would be able to give him the solution. Schwab agreed to test the system for a few weeks, then sent Lee a check for what he thought the idea was worth.

Lee advised Schwab to have his managers, at the end of the day, make a list of their top six priorities for the next day. Then they had to number from 1 to 6 according to the importance of that task. The next day, take tasks in order of priority, not continuing until one task is complete. Within a couple of weeks, Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 worth of the idea, and this was in the 1920s.

The simple method of time management

This simple idea encapsulates all the ideas within entire books and courses. Often these materials, while presenting nice distinctions and enhancements that are valuable, tend to obscure the basic idea that Lee presented. The person studying the concepts gets caught up in complicated quadrants, matrices, and prioritization schemes: they miss the basics, the part that makes everything worthwhile to begin with.

If you are new to time management or have a system that has overwhelmed you, go back to basics and start making your own distinctions, create your own rules.

Lee handed Schwab a blank sheet of paper and said…

1. Make a list of the six most important things you have to do tomorrow.
2. number them in order of importance
3. Get the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until complete
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of the day. If you don’t finish, you probably wouldn’t have finished anyway; when you realize this, you know when to say no to a new task or give it to someone else.

Then there’s his simple time management seminar that Schwab willingly paid what would be the equivalent of $250,000 for today. In essence, he incorporates all the elements that he can read entire chapters of time management books to understand. You’ll find out the parts about how to avoid interruptions and all the minutiae.

If you’re one of those people who has more to do than you can accomplish, you really need to read Napoleon Hill and take his messages seriously, whether it’s about time management or anything else. It’s not a lot of rules and materials to memorize, but rather a belief system that taps into your subconscious mind and causes you to reach out to others and form what Hill calls a “master mind.” Master Mind is a team that works together for a common purpose. Maybe it’s you and your spouse or a best friend to start with, maybe it’s a group at work. Each of you with six things to do tomorrow. Each of you helping the other to see the important things, which on some days may just be putting it down and refreshing yourself so you can be more effective when you return.

That’s it for Google search result 227,000,001, Napoleon Hill and Ivy Lee’s time management tools; And make no mistake, time management is one of the greatest success principles of all time.