The Fallacy of Time Management

 I was listening to Bob Proctor this morning--he's one of several people in self improvement whom I listen to--and he shared something that he learned from Earl Nightingale.

Bob asked Earl how it was that he had mastered time management so well. Earl surprised Bob by saying he didn't manage time.

He said you can't manage time. You can only manage activities.

Wow! Talk about a change in a mindset.

How often have you heard someone talk about time management? 

I've even attended classes that were supposed to help one better manage time.

The internal programming that has been set in the mind of most people is that we need to someone manage our time better to get more done. That's the paradigm. The belief set, that we can, somehow, manage our time.

The problem is time cannot be managed. Everyone has the same amount of time in every day.

When you can manage something, you can change it. It can be adapted, improved. It can be made better or worse.

Yes, we can be more effective and efficient with our use of time. Or we can be wasteful of it. But time itself cannot be changed and therefore cannot be managed.

People can (but shouldn't--I should write a post on this at a later date) be managed. Resources can be managed. And along this line, time shouldn't be considered a resource because it cannot be changed, increased or decreased.

Because so much of our lives can be managed it's an extension that most people assume time can also be managed. But it's not time, but our use of time that can be managed.

When so much of our lives are the product of habits and activities that are induced from our habitual behaviors, we need to shift our beliefs and focus on managing our habits and activities. 

We can change our habits. We can choose what activities we engage in and for how long. These can be managed.

Forget the idea that time can be managed. Focus instead on managing what you do with your time, your use of time.