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While we're talking, envious day is fleeing: Seize the day, put no trust in future.
- Horace

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
- C. Northcote Parkinson

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
- Bertrand Russell

Being in the present means tuning out distractions. And paying attention to what’s important. Now. You create your present by what you give your attention to.
– Spenser Johnson, “The Present”

Space we can recover, time never.
- Napolean Bonaparte

Never give an appointment to anybody without finding out what she/he wants.
- Anon

Economy is the art of making most of life. The love of economy is the root of all virtue.
- G.B. Shaw

Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go.
– Austin Dobson

I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
– Bernard Berenson

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.
- Sylvia Plath

I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting.
- H.D. Thoreau

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
- Bertrand Russell

THE BASICS OF TIME MANAGEMENT
1. Prioritize: people, time, and paper.
2. Make lists
3. Ask for all reports to start with a one-page summary.
4. Encourage people to write in the ‘inverted - pyramid’ style of newspapers: the summary (& the headline) first and then the details.

Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly.
- Aldus Manutius, Placard on the door of the Aldine Press

THE FOUR TYPES OF TASKS
Tasks can be divided into four categories:

1. Direct value, High Priorities
Making a sale, presenting to your staff, writing a report

2. Indirect value, what pays off later
Learning new skills, setting goals.

3. Necessary non-value
Things you must do that have no value for you . Filling out government forms, taking many phone calls.

4. Unnecessary Non value
These includes things like writing routine reports that co-workers no longer read.

Do first things first, and second things not at all.
- Peter Drucker

TWO LISTS YOU SHOULD LOOK AT EVERY MORNING

List 1: Your Focus List (the road ahead)

What are you trying to achieve? What makes you happy? What's important to you? Design your time around those things. Because time is your one limited resource and no matter how hard you try you can't work 25/8.

List 2: Your Ignore List (the distractions)

To succeed in using your time wisely, you have to ask the equally important but often avoided complementary questions: what are you willing not to achieve? What doesn't make you happy? What's not important to you? What gets in the way?

- Harvard Business Review

Getting everything done is not always a sign of good time management, it can also be a sign of not having enough to do.
- S Billbess

HOW TO MANAGE TIME

1. List tasks
In addition, put them in prominent position so that it can catch notice.

2. Use a Time Sheet
It circulates a habit of planning time. On a white sheet, allocate a time period for each of the tasks listed. Allocate the right amount of time for each task, not too much, not too little. Accommodate for time loss that external factors could cause to a task.

3. Rank tasks
Prioritize them according to their significance and their impact on tasks that follow. If time is at a premium, you would know to what to do immediately and what can be done later. Also keep in mind the likely impact of the tasks on your long term plans.

4. Schedule tasks
Do things at the right time - never too early nor too late. Do not lose heart if your scheduling goes awry. An ability to schedule activities appropriately in the chain of events would mature as one matures in time management skills.

5. Attempt Small tasks
Split big tasks into smaller activities. You can do each one of them in a fixed period of time. Arrange the overall bits in order of their importance in the scheme of the big technique hand.

6. Focus on each task
Provide all your attention to the current ability being executed, no matter how mundane it may be , paying little attention to whatever has gone by.

7. Compare results
Introspect to analyze. Review plans & the net results. If this is not satisfactory, look at areas which would bring improvement the next time you are performing the similar activity.


The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.
- Lee Iacocca

ABCDE METHOD OF LIST MAKING

A = Must Do
B = Should Do
C = Nice to Do
D = Delegate
E = Eliminate

- From 'Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time' by Brian Tracy

SEVEN QUESTIONS ABOUT SELF-REFLECTION THAT WILL HELP YOU MANAGE TIME BETTER
1. What will I try to improve on next week?
2. What was I most proud of this week?
3. What was my biggest accomplishment this week?
4. What have I done to get closer to my life goals this week?
5. What was hard for me this week, and why?
6. What was my biggest waste of time this week?
7. What did I do this week that made me ashamed?
- Alex Shalman

THE NOW HABIT

HOW TO STOP PROCRASTINATING

Five Self-Statements that Distinguish Procrastinators from Producers
1. I have to.
replace with choose to.
2. I must finish.
replace with When can I start?
3. This is so big.
replace with can take one small step.
4. I must be perfect.
I can be human.
5. I don't have time to play.
I must take time to play.
Combined: I choose to start one small imperfect step knowing I am human and I must take time to play.

Use Pull-Method Motivation

Push method
- peel the potatoes or you'll lose your weekend pass
- increase the number of clients called per day or find another job
- read this entire shelf of books by the end of the semester

Pull method
- earn another day of leave for each basket
- learn how to communicate effectively with clients and you'll be able to see more clients
- imagine that, as you read a chapter, you are placing it on this empty shelf

Managing People Who Procrastinate
Commitment to a task sparks much more creativity and motivation than compliance.

Compliance
- You'd better finish by noon.
- You have to get here on time, or else.
Do it exactly as I showed you.

Commitment
- What can you get me by noon?
- I've placed you in a responsible position and I'm depending on you to be here at nine o'clock.
- We need to be able to trust each other's work, so I need you to follow the guidelines precisely. Let me know if you have any problems with them.

The point: Focus On Starting vs. Finishing

- Adapted from ‘Now Habit’ by Neil A. Fiore, Ph.D.

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