8: Managing Your Time

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The term time management may call forth images of restriction and control. You might visualize a prune-faced Scrooge hunched over your shoulder, stopwatch in hand, telling you what to do every minute. Bad news.

Good news: You do have enough time for the things you want to do. All it takes is thinking about the possibilities and making conscious choices.

Time is an unusual commodity. There are several reasons for this. For one, it cannot really be saved. You can’t stockpile time like wood for the fireplace or like canned food for a storm. Time also can’t be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. Even scientists and philosophers find it hard to describe. And because time is so elusive, it is easy to ignore. That doesn’t bother time at all. Time is perfectly content to remain hidden until you are nearly out of it. And when you are out of it, you are out of it.

In addition, time is a nonrenewable resource. If you’re out of wood, you can chop some more. If you’re out of money, you can earn a little extra. If you’re out of love, there is still hope. If you’re out of health, it can often be restored. But when you’re out of time, that’s it. When this minute is gone, it’s gone.

Another challenge is that time seems hard to control. Sometimes, it seems that your friends control your time; your boss controls your time; your teachers or your parents or your kids control your time.

This module invites you to test this idea: Approach time as if you are in control of it. When you say you don’t have enough time, you might really be saying that you are not spending the time you have in the way you want. In this module, we’ll explore strategies you can use in daily life to help improve your time management skills, maximizing each day’s potential for success and balance.

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