The correlation between Time Management and Stress is indisputable; if you want to reduce your Stress levels this is the place to start.

Stress and Time Management is a vast topic, one with a tremendous amount of complexity and intermingled issues that cloud the basics. In my humble opinion, we can reduce this complex relationship down to a few simple fundamentals.

What is Stress?

It’s the emotion or feeling we experience that stops us from enjoying life and prevents us from completing things we want to do. This works for me and it has worked for my clients over the last 35 years or so. I do not make money from treating or dealing with Stress related issues or ailments. This allows me a certain amount of freedom. I am not cornered into dealing with Stress on a singular level; I deal with Stress on what I consider its root cause.

That does not mean that I do not take it seriously, nor does it mean that I do not see the damage it can cause and how it adversely affects my clients. What it means is that I deal with Stress at the source, cut it off at the pass, so to speak. The way to reduce your Stress levels is to not allow Stress to take hold. We have to remember that we allow Stress to take hold and to effect us. This fact is a hard one for some of us to accept, but it is the start point from which we can make inroads into reducing our Stress levels.

What Causes Stress?

If I could bottle this, I would be rich. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a singular cause for Stress. Stress affects different people in different ways. One situation may cause some people to become stressed, anxious, while not affecting other people at all. Putting this aside for a moment, there is a general situation that the majority of people, when faced with this, find themselves getting nervous, anxious, unable to function at their best, all symptoms of stress.

This situation is a feeling a not being in control, not being in charge and not knowing what is going to happen next.  It’s a common feeling for many people; it’s a feeling of helplessness and a feeling that you are not the captain of your own ship. What is important here is not having a list of all 147 potential causes of Stress, a number that I pulled out of the air.  What is important is recognizing that the 3 that I listed here are ones that, in all likelihood, effect 99 % of the people reading this.

What is important is that by eliminating these feelings, we will have taken a huge bite out of what causes Stress in you and that really is the point here.

What to Do About It ?

How do you take charge, put yourself in control and always be in a position to know what will happen to you next? Simple, properly manage your Time. All of these functions and conditions run through and are tied to your ability to manage your time. Proper Time Management is all about putting you back in control of your time, making you the person who makes the decisions and is the one who dictates the agenda.

The reason you do not know what is going to happen next is that you have not taken the steps to ensure what you want to do is on your agenda. The way to ensure what you want to do is on your agenda, to have an agenda in the first place. That is another function and purpose of proper Time Management, lay out your agenda, in advance, and when it comes time to go to bat, you know what you want to do and you know when you are going to do it.

With medical exceptions, Stress is something we allow to happen to ourselves. It is also something that is entirely within our control to greatly reduce if not totally eliminate. You owe it to yourself to investigate the effect that a proper Time Management System can have on your Stress levels.

Just when you think you pretty well know everything about a topic, something pops up and spoils your illusion.

I have been working with Time Management Tools and Systems for the past 35 years and I was pretty confident that I was on top of the game, until now. I was writing some material a few weeks ago and it just came out as I was writing. It was an unrelated document and I used these two words to describe Time Management to someone. They just popped out and as soon as I had written them, I knew that I had found something that I had been looking for, for a very long time.

Have you ever been looking for something and you do not know what it is, but when you find it, that’s when you know what it was you were looking for in the first place. That was my dilemma for a long time. I knew that there was a way for me to better describe what Proper Time Management really was to people, but I had not found the exact terms that would convey what I knew and felt to other people. I had numerous ways to describe what Time Management was, most of them were really GOOD, but none of them was the ONE.

I have been looking for the ONE word or groups of words that would convey exactly the essence and the true power of Proper Time Management to the non believers. Let’s face it; my job is to turn people who do not use and practice Proper Time Management techniques into believers and practitioners, over night to start. I was happy with my explanations, but was frustrated that I had not found the Silver Bullet, so to speak.

I have found that Silver Bullet.

Checks and Balances

Not very earth shattering is it. It may not be to you, but to me, it is the missing link that I have been looking for, for quite some time. The instant those three words came off the keyboard and on to the screen, my search was over. To me, those three words “checks and balances “summed up why you should pay critical attention to how you treat and deal with your own time.

Checks

We all need parameters; we all need to know where our personal line in the sand should be. Rules, regulations, what we should and can’t do, are all part of functioning in this world. The successful people, people who seemed to be able to get more of the things they want in life, at least more things than others are capable of acquiring, have this process down pat.

The process that I am talking about is finding a way to accomplish more of the things they need to do to be successful than non successful people. Sounds simple, but we know that it is not. How do they do it?

They do it by self imposing their own set of checks and balances that guide them each day and if they follow their own set of rules, will make to the end of the day having accomplished what they need to do to be successful. Proper Time Management gives you the Tools and Systems, all wrapped up in one package that lays out the checks and balances procedures for you. This is an important distinction that must be emphasized.

A Proper Time Management System, is a skeleton, it has all of the steps, procedures, the checks and balances included in it, all that is left for you to do is to apply this Tool to your everyday practices and integrate the two. Its not un like buying a coloring book, all of the pictures are outlined in the book, its up to you to put in the colors according to what you want the pictures to look like. The same book will be bought by 10 different people, the outcomes, how the individual pictures look will all be different.

Balances

Life is about balancing the things we want to do with the things we have to do. I will take this statement one step further; it’s about redefining the things we think we have to do. One step further again, its also about making sure we are really do the things we want to do, there is always massive competition in this category, finding the truly important things we want to do is always a challenge.

How happy we are, how successful we are rides on finding this balance in life. I have not found many happy people, or many successful people who have found this balance just by chance. Identifying the things in your life that will make you happy and or successful is just half the challenge. Once you find the ingredients, you have to find a way to put them in a bowl, mix them all up and come out at the end with the perfect cake.

That is why checks and balances is the perfect missing link to my personal journey to understanding why Proper Time Management is so crucial to me accomplishing what I want out of life.

Napoleon was no dummy, he knew the value of time, and the impact that time has on a persons chances of achieving success and achieving the goals they have in life.

“You can ask me for anything you like, except time “Napoleon Bonaparte

You can sometimes tell how important a topic is when you look at the number of important people that have quotes under that topic. When you look up Time Management, its hard not to find an influential person who does not have at least one quote about Time, many of them have several quotes attributed to them.

Napoleons quote is one of thousands that deal with time. I choose this one because what he is saying is as relevant today as it was 200 years ago. I also choose this quote because it very clearly states how we should treat our time. In this quote he says you can have anything you want, with out exception, except his time. He realized that everything is replaceable, except his time.

There is an expression in marketing, its called “top of the head awareness “, it’s the place that every marketer wants to get to. Briefly, the term means that when ever the consumers thinks of cars, what is the car that they think of first, what car is at the top of the list, hence, the term top of the head awareness.

I find that when I am working with people on issues that effect them, that as I work through their issues, problems, one thing that stands out immediately is this one. There total lack of awareness of the role that time plays in there everyday activities. For example, when I start a project, the first thing I do is look at the implications from a time issue. How much time will it take, how much time do I have available, how much time before I start, the list goes on.

Time is at the top of my list, it’s my number one top of my head awareness topics. Going back to my clients for a moment. Very few, if any of them, run their actions through a time filter. Time filter is simply a way of looking at what they want to do and before they start their activity, analyze if for its suitability as it pertains to time issues. I have already gone over some of those issues in this article.

The individual issues are not as important as the process and when it starts. The when it starts is the crucial element here. The more times you start your thinking process, your planning process with the focus on the time implications, the more times you will be significantly more productive and reap far greater rewards than if you had not.

If you start off by thinking about the time ramifications, you are setting yourself up for being better organized, more productive and getting done what should be done, when it should be done by. The process, once started with time as the guiding factor, becomes a much more productive exercise and one that stands a really good chance of yielding good results. The more you follow this step, the step of putting time first, the more it will become apparent to yourself how much better off you are in terms of getting what you want done.

By recognizing the importance of time by first putting what we may want to do through our time criteria, we are now starting to lay the proper foundation on which to build our future success. Nothing will make you more of a convert than you experiencing, personally for yourself, actual positive results appearing in your day to day life. The proof is in the pudding.

If you want better results and you want to gain back control of your time, increase your productivity, reduce your stress, you are going to have to learn how to drive.

This concept, learning how to drive is a mainstay of what I teach people about time, productivity, stress, business skills, it’s all rolled into one. It’s about deciding if you are going to be a passenger, let other people decide things for you, or are you going to be a driver and take the decision making process into your own hands.

Passengers

What do you think of when you hear the word passengers? Does it have a positive, aggressive, take charge connotation to it, of course not? You do not even have to know where I was going with that one to know it was not going to end up well for the passengers. Unfortunately, 95 %, perhaps even higher than that, is the percentage of the people who are reading this, will fall into the category of passengers, passengers of life.

Nothing gets the hair up on people quicker than to put them into that category of passengers, but the reality is, that is where most of us belong. The good news is, it does not take much to get out of the back seat and into the drivers seat. Let’s first quickly identify what separates a passenger from a driver:

• passengers do not have an organized systematic way of identifying their agenda
• passengers do not a written agenda for their daily schedules to follow
• passengers do not have a way of keeping track of their goals and dreams in life
• passengers allow other people to put their agenda in play
• passengers allow other people to dictate the course of events for them
• passengers let other people make their decisions for them

The list is much longer than this one but you can clearly see the direction that I am going in. First, I introduced a word into the mix that may need a little explaining, Agenda, what is it. ? I use Agenda as a multi purpose word but the main definition that I use is this; the course of action that will most benefit you and further your pursuit of your goals.

To be honest, I have a host of definitions but that one works well for here. Your Agenda is your best friend, it will help you get successful, will help you stay organized, will make you toe the line you have set for yourself, it is really a dynamic tool that you need to get and develop. Remember this about passengers and Agendas. Passengers are not drivers because they do not have Agendas that is what separates drivers from passengers.

Drivers

I have already set this one up for us. Drivers are everything that passengers are not. Drivers have everything passengers do not. One thing that I have not discussed about drivers and passengers is this. Drivers take charge, they are pro-active and they are aggressive in putting forth their Agenda. Passengers sit back, do not take the initiative and because they do not have an Agenda, are incapable of driving something they do not posses.

One final note, the real difference between passengers and drivers is the attitude, or better yet, the lack of one. Drivers create an attitude about their Agendas and this enables them to get the things they want, and need to get done, done. They create an edge to their attitude about their time, and this puts them into a position to become successful. Passengers lack this edge, this attitude and they just allow themselves to be pushed into the background and they end up watching instead of participating

As the title says, you have to learn to drive your own Agenda and this will put you in the drivers seat and in a position to make things happen for yourself.

This is probably the only place that deals with Time Management issues that will tell you the process will not be an easy or a quick one.

Time Management is not a destination, it’s a journey. I have used this saying, slogan on my material for as long as I can remember. So long, that I cannot remember, for 100% certainty whether I used it first or whether have seen it before and cannot remember the source. I am pretty good at remembering and crediting sources so I believe it is my creation. If not, I hope someone can set me straight on this one.

Regardless of the source of the quote, I have certainly adopted it as my own. It very clearly sums up my philosophy on time and how we should perceive it. I used to give seminars on Time Management, close to a 1,000 perhaps. I used to start every seminar with the same line; this is just the start of the journey. I wanted the people in the seminar to look at Time management in the light that would best prepare them for the process ahead of them.

If you start a process and you enter into that process with a clear understanding of what is going to take place, you stand a much greater chance of succeeding than if you start the process on a faulty understanding. Makes sense to me. I find it disturbing to see these ads that claim that if you buy a certain type of soft ware, your time will mysteriously take on some sort of magical powers that will allow you to accomplish 50 or 60 % more in less time, with the flick of a switch.

I get embarrassed just reading those claims. Suffice to say, I do not share those feelings. I am a pragmatist, I believe in working, applying yourself, getting a good workable plan, put it into place and may the best person win. I have been working on and with Time Management tools and Systems for the last 35 years, if there was a Silver Bullet out there, I would of found it, marketed and made many millions from it, I have not been able to do any of that and I am sorry to say, either has anyone else.

Which brings us to here and now. The good news is this, you can now start today, and for the rest of your life, you can do what anyone else, who has tried, you can start to work on improving your life through proper Time Management principles. The further good news is that regardless of how long the journey is, you will start to see and benefit from your labors immediately.

This does not mean that overnight all of your worries, stress and anxieties will vanish, what it means is you will start to see benefits that correspond with the changes you will be making in your life.

One of the reasons I like working with people on Time Management issues is that when you adopt, even a single new principle and then apply it to your everyday life, you reap that benefit, for the rest of your life. That is also the reason that when you refer to Time Management as a journey, a life long journey, you should not perceive this as a negative thing, but one that will allow you to benefit immensely from small changes that you can continually make, for the rest of your life.

There are not many instances in life when you can make small changes in the way you do things, that will give you a lifetime of benefits. Time is the stuff life is made of. Activities are the things that take up your time. When you put the right activities into the right parcels of time, you can make your life long journey a thing of beauty.

I use different words, the base, the foundation, the building blocks, what ever names we use, they mean the same thing, if you really want to make an impact; you have to start with how you treat your time.

I did not choose Time Management, Time Management choose me. I started my career as a Business Consultant and ended up dealing with time tools, issues and systems for the last 35 years. I did not start out saying to myself, this seems like an interesting carrier choice, I think I will go down this path; my choice was made for me.

People would walk into my office and complain about everything under the sun. They were not making enough money, they were not getting enough production done, they had labor problems, and there was a lot of complaining going on. After dealing with this assortment of problems, something started to emerge. Everybody had the same base problem, regardless of what they initially came in for. They all had the following underlying deficiencies in their operations;

• a general lack of organization
• no game plan
• no written schedules to follow
• no respect their time or the time of others
• no mid range or long range goals
• no cohesiveness of actions
• no set standards
• no big picture in place

It seemed that all of the people that walked into my office, all suffered from the same, malady, they didn’t plan to fail, they just failed to plan. Failing to plan is just another way, perhaps a kinder way to say this, if you do not take the time to do it right, spend the time to actually think about what you want to do, the chances that you are going to fail, shoot sky high, just ask my clients.

I am not the kind of person that likes the one size fits all approach, but when it comes to dealing with time, I have to take the low ground on this one. If I have met anyone that can not benefit from over hauling how they deal with time, it must have been a very long time ago because I certainly can not remember the meeting.

I am going to go on record as saying that if you are reading this piece, you can and will benefit from looking at how you deal with your time and the benefits you are going to derive from the resulting changes.

Some of the base changes you will want to start to make are these:

• look at your time as the valuable commodity that it is and start to give your time the respect it deserves
• spend time on thinking about how to parcel out this non renewable resource
• look at spending your time as you would your money, you want the best possible return on your investment
• before you invest your time, spend an appropriate amount of time reviewing your choices and weighting them against other activities that are also vying for your attention

The reality of most of our current lifestyles is that we will not be able to complete all of things we would like to do before we are unable to do them, regardless of what that reason may be. I believe we all have to come to that realization in order to come to terms with our diminishing supply of time and our ever increasing wish list of things to do.

Keeping this reality in mind, it is paramount for our happiness and general well being that we find a way to do the most things we can in life and make sure that in that group of things we do, we mange to squeeze the maximum number of our favorite things in.