His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'
-- Matthew 25:21

The demands of our personal life and the competitive nature of business can create stress and an imbalance of life's activities. Today's multi-tasking, on-the-go world can distract a person from their true goals and aspirations. A time/life management strategy can help identify goals, prioritize tasks and allow more time for essential life and business activities. This proactive, written strategy should create realistic long term goals with short term action plans. Ultimately, the time required to develop and implement your plan will allow more time for yourself and what's really important!

What is the purpose of doing time/life management?
The Bible instructs us to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us by God (Mathew 25:14-30). The Bible also warns us that we will be held accountable for our deeds and activities (Ecclesiastes 3:17). Christians may devote considerable time for church and spiritual related activities, leaving less time for other things... A time/life management process can help identify worthy goals and implement desirable changes for continuous improvement over time.

How does Time-Life Management apply to me?
Everyone has different time management needs that often change through the course of their lives. This document is meant to show different time management components that can be used in part or whole when they are needed. Everyone can realize the benefits of using elements from the "Time Savers" section without having to implement the "ONPAR" management model. Most importantly, time management strategies can be
used to achieve life changing goals and objectives.

What are the benefits of a time management strategy?

Increased understanding because knowing time management principles may help to adapt to stressful times.
Increased confidence because you have written long term goals
short term action plans.
Increased stability because you have designed a balanced plan that considers all of your life activities.
Reduced stress because you've transferred your stress to a written plan.
The concise and topical nature of this paper is designed to
provide easy to read material that can be easily referenced at a later time.

II. Time Relationships

"Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas."
-- Groucho Marx

What life activities compete for our time?
We all share common mandatory life activities such as eating,
sleeping, work or raising children. However, excessive mandatory time constraints may force some people to have an unbalanced lifestyle. A person with a full time career will have a different life activities than a home maker who stays at home to raise their children. Also, some people have religious commitments while others do not. Ultimately, it is important to understand your mandatory and discretionary time relationships and strive to create a balanced lifestyle.

Mandatory activities: (Must be done or face short term consequence)

Self (physical): sleeping, eating
Career: includes: traditional career, home maker, volunteer worker.
Critical Maintenance: personal hygiene, pay
bills, housekeeping, laundry, vehicle repair, ...

Discretionary activities:(Optional, but should be done to enjoy a full and normal lifestyle)

Spiritual: May include daily prayer and bible study, one or more weekly services, volunteering time.
Family: Sharing time with family members: playing games, shopping, watching TV, family meals...
Health: diet, exercise, regular health care checkups.
Education: college or self taught course work.
Regular Maintenance: "spring cleaning" household chores, wash/wax/maintain the car, paint the house, mow the lawn, clean the garage.
Self (interests): everything else that is
personal which may include; relaxing, hobbies, reading, watching TV, listening to music, ...

III. Time Issues

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
-- Sidney J. Harris

What issues affect how we manage our time?
Your attitude, physical condition, interruptions, career, and
personality are just some of the issues that impact how you can manage your time. Recognizing how these factors affect you is an important criteria for developing strategies to make you more productive.

What are the negative impacts from poor time management?

Under busy conditions a person may use reactive strategies. This may cause a crisis management issue, which is to wait for a crisis, then manage it.
Increased stress from conflicts during busy times.
Time imbalance of your life activities.
Loss of productivity
Less time available for important discretionary functions.

How can a time management plan help?

Promotes a proactive strategy by using a plan to accomplish long and short term goals.
Recognize and avoid activities that waste time.
Reduce stress by following a plan designed to prevent issues that cause stress.
Increase productivity by following a plan to maximize your goals.
Implement a process that promotes continuous improvement.
A good time management plan is an ongoing personal development
tool that can help accomplish your goals.

IV. Time Savers.

The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot.
-- Michael Althsuler

Everyday tricks to improve time efficiency.
The following prioritized activities do not require a time management plan. Simply recognize them and use them in your daily life.

1) PLANNING - Take time to make time!
Taking time to plan your short term daily strategies and long term goals/objectives is the most important part of time management. This investment provides a proactive approach to issues and the balance you need at work and home. It helps to balance all of life's activities because you can learn from the past to make better choices in your present and future activities. In short, planning is Time Management. See the "ONPAR" Planning section for more details.

2) Physical considerations:
Your physical condition may be the most important productivity factor, particularly for creative activities. It is influenced by your sleep, diet and exercise.

Know and use your biological time clock and "personal peak times"
(Cottrell 35). Most people are more productive in the early part of their day. Schedule your most important, mentally demanding tasks during this time. Likewise, schedule meetings and less creative functions for later in the day.
Get adequate sleep (Cottrell 39).
Eat a good breakfast to take advantage of your biological time clock.
Take an exercise break when possible.
Drink plenty of water.
Schedule time for yourself during your most productive time of the day. Do this regularly and let others know it.
Avoid doing mundane tasks during your most productive time periods
(ie. Email and meetings). Try to schedule them for later in the
day.

3) Recognize the Pareto Principle:
Since 80% of your results may come from 20% of your activities, spend your time on the 20% (Cottrell 34). This principle is the foundation of many time management activities that include prioritizing your tasks, goals and objectives.

4) Prioritizing Tasks:

Prioritizing Routine Tasks:
- Write down your tasks for a given time period.
- Prioritize them from most to least important.
- Start with the most important task and work down (Cottrell 33).
- When confronted with tasks of equal priority, start with the most difficult, least liked task.
- Schedule the next day's activities at the end of a busy day to avoid forgetting critical details.
Prioritizing Complex Tasks.
Use an Urgency/Importance Matrix (Time Management – 12Manage.com).
Write down tasks for a given time period, then categorize them into the four categories described below:
- Most important/Urgent tasks (related to your goals): Do
  these now!
- More important/Less urgent tasks (critical maintenance):
  Schedule these tasks!
- Less important/More urgent tasks (regular maintenance):
  Delegate these!
- The least important and urgent tasks: Delete
  these!

5) Combine activities to optimize your time:

When possible, plan to eat meals as an entire family.
Substitute singular "self" activities (ie. television) with group "family" activities (ie. exercise with family members, relax together on the porch, campfires, etc.)

6) Track your time during a typical one week period. Understand where your time is going.

Complete the "One Week Activity Log" in the attached Microsoft Excel file: Time Management Worksheets.xls.

Use the results to understand the balance of your life activities.

7) Managing interruptions and Time Wasters:
Our scheduled daily activities compete with interruptions and time wasters. Learn to recognize and manage them. Note the timing of your appointments, productivity level, interruptions and time wasters (Cottrell 1, 12). Observe your most common interruptions and "time
wasters" and develop solutions (Cottrell 11-13).

Complete the "Interruption Worksheet" in the attached Microsoft
Excel file: Time Management Worksheets.xls.
Complete the "Time Waster Worksheet" in the attached Microsoft
Excel file: Time Management Worksheets.xls.

8) Further Reading:

Read this book: 175 Ways to Get More Done in Less Time! by David Cottrell and Mark C. Layton.
See the references at the end of this document.

V. Develop Your Time Management Plan.

"Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."
-- Andrew Jackson, 7th US President

Develop your "ONPAR" Time Management Plan (Observe, Negotiate, Plan, Act, Review). Everyone has used variations from the "Timely Tips" section to improve time management. The "ONPAR" model is about managing your time and important goals to improve the direction of your life. This strategy stresses
observing your current time patterns, developing goals, implementing them with scheduled activities and periodically reviewing your results. Below is a description of this process.

Observe your typical activities in one week:
Problem solving begins with understanding the problem. Periodically record what occupies your mandatory and discretionary time for a typical week. Complete the attached "One Week Activity Log" worksheet in the Microsoft Excel file: href="http://way23.com/files/tmdocs/Time Management
Worksheets.xls">Time Management Worksheets.xls. Follow the
instructions and tally the weekly totals for each mandatory and
discretionary activity.

Negotiate your time imbalances:
Analyze your completed activities time log and negotiate with yourself (and spouse) on what your priorities should be. The following are some suggested methods to help find activity patterns:

Compare your mandatory and discretionary time differences.
Can you delegate more of the critical maintenance tasks or have you delegated too much, which is causing a burden on someone
else?
Are you satisfied with balance of time for each category? If not, how could you shift your time?
Can you combine activities to maximize your time? For example, can you increase family time by eating more meals or exercising with family members?
Compare your rankings within your mandatory and discretionary
categories.
Compare and negotiate your findings with your spouse.
Copy and paste your log time into the lower "Test Model" tables and adjust the times to reflect a new plan. Hopefully, the analysis and reflection will help you understand areas that need improvement.

Plan your daily strategies and goals:
Develop short term, daily strategies and long term goals/objectives to help you accomplish what is really important. This is perhaps the most important part of time management because it produces a proactive strategy that saves time and prioritizes work load. It may be difficult to initiate for people who do not have a natural desire to plan ahead.

Plan your daily schedule (Short Term):
- Review your schedule in the morning to help focus on what you need to accomplish. Make adjustments throughout the day as needed. Create a "TODO" list if you have a lot of tasks:
- Review your accomplishments at the end of the day and identify any unfinished tasks. Prioritize these tasks in a "TODO" list or put them in the next day's schedule.
- If writing a TODO list is not natural, consider accountability partners to encourage you to learn this habit.
Plan your goals and objectives (Long Term):
Goals are lofty ideas that describe a destination and objectives are the detailed steps to get there. Goals are intangible and without metrics, while objectives define the tangible details of the goal with specific measurements (Goals). Below is an example of a goal with objectives:
GOAL: "Get in better physical condition." * Objective 1.1: Walk 45 mins. with spouse, 3x-Week. * Objective 1.2: Join a fitness club & work out 3x-Week. * Objective 1.3: Take the stairs at work, daily.
- The ONPAR model advocates having high level goals with detailed objectives as sub-tasks of the goal. This allows the goal to remain constant while the objectives may change over time.
- Set reasonable goals and objectives, try to divide and conquer with "baby steps".
- If you have multiple goals, you could determine the two most
  important objectives from two different activity categories. Then memorize these objectives and identify them as "#1 Priority Objective" and "#2 Priority Objective". Try to accomplish these objectives when faced with a restrictive time schedule.
- Use this attached Word document to help create your goals and
  objectives: Goals-Objectives Template.doc.

Act on your plan:
Goals are considered to be long term plans, while the objectives are the short term action steps needed to reach the goal. You implement goals by "doing" the objectives. Schedule them into your life and soon they will become automatic.

Schedule relevant objective activities that require a reminder. These are your objectives to be accomplished in one month.
Schedule activities that promote your written goals and objectives (Nadeau).
Don't over book your schedule. Be realistic and allow for
unexpected events that require additional time.
Allow extra time for unplanned contingencies to help prevent
frustration (Nadeau).
Maintain a log for important goal-related activities. The log will provide valuable information when it is reviewed periodically.
For example, if you have variable exercise patterns, a log may help determine the most effective routine when reviewed on a monthly basis.

Review :
It is critical to schedule a time each month to review your long term goals to help keep you focused and on track. Periodically review your results and adjust your plan accordingly. When you review your long term goals consider the following strategies to provide more balance:

Review the past month's scheduled activities and logs. Determine what strategies were successful and others that could be improved.
Learn from your mistakes by adjusting your goals and objectives to make them more realistic if needed.
Review past month's activities for opportunities that can be
scheduled into the future to avoid missing opportunities.
Strive for continuous improvement by recognizing when and how you successfully accomplished an objective. This will encourage you to conquer the next objective!

VI. Choose a Time Management
Tool.

"What better gift, than the sacrifice of your time."
-- Patrick McGovern

Pick the tool that's right for you.
The following lists shows different types of time management tools. The details of your time management plan are separate from the tool that you use to implement it. Choose the tool that works for you to schedule your daily activities and objectives.

Reminders (ie. Sticky notes)
Calendars
Traditional Paper Based Planner (Nadeau)
Computer software: Personal Information Manager (PIM)
Stand alone PDA (A Personal)
Smart Phone PDA
Web calendar Cell Phone (WCC)

Time Management Tool Requirements,
Must Have Features:

The tool must allow convenient access and modifications to the schedule.
The tool must allow the data to be legible and easy to read.

Nice To Have Features:

The tool should allow the data to be easily imported and exported.
The tool should provide notifications before a scheduled event.
The tool should be easy to convert to a new year.
The tool should allow easy access to past and future years.
The tool should use open standards versus proprietary to protect the data from vendor control.
The tool should allow the data to be synchronized to other formats.

Case Study Ranking Scale:

Very Good (5 pts.)
Good (4 pts.)
Fair (3 pts.)
Poor (2 pts.)
Very Poor (1 pts.)

Tool Case Studies

VII. Document Details

Document Location: www.Way23.com
Author(s): Patrick N. McGovern
Creation Date: 02/02/2007
Version: 1.04

VIII. References.

The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.
-- Calvin

"A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) versus other time management
tools". Online website by Time-Management-Guide.com, 2002.
http://www.time-management-guide.com/PDA.html

Cottrell, David and Layton, Mark C. 175 Ways to Get More Done in Less
Time! Dallas, TX. CornerStone Leadership Institute, 2000.

Covey, Stephen R. "The four generations of time management" Online
website by Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_management

"Creating SMART Goals" Online website by Top Achievement.
http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html

"Create a Google Account – Gmail" Online website by Google.
https://www.google.com/accounts/SmsMailSignup1

"Developing Goals and Objectives" Online website by Valerie Landau.
http://www.roundworldmedia.com/cvc/module4/topic4.html

"Google Calendar" Online website by Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Calendar

"Google Calendar"Online website by Google.
http://www.google.com/googlecalendar/overview.html

"Google Calendar SMS Interaction" Online website by PainInTheTech.
http://paininthetech.com/google_calendar_sms_interaction

"GooSync Beta Home Page". Online website by GooSync.
http://www.goosync.com/Default.aspx

"Import & Export" Online website by Google Calendar.
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=8566

Nadeau, Kathleen, Ph.D. "Using a Day Planner as a Life Planner"
Online website by Attention Deficit Disorder Resources.
http://www.addresources.org/article_day_planner_nadeau.php

Short message service" Online website by Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service

"Time Management" Online website by 12Manage.com.
http://www.12manage.com/description_time_management.html

"Time Management Basics" Online website by Magellan Health Services,
Inc. http://www.magellanassist.com/mem/library/default.asp?TopicId=326&Catego...

"Goals and Objectives" Online website by Valerie Landau.
http://www.roundworldmedia.com/cvc/module4/notes4.html

Time-Life Management - Balancing Life Activities

I. Introduction