“Time management” is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific activities. Good time management enables you to work smarter – not harder – so that you get more done in less time, even when time is tight and pressures are high. Failing to manage your time damages your effectiveness and causes stress.
It seems that there is never enough time in the day. But, since we all get the same 24 hours, why is it that some people achieve so much more with their time than others? The answer lies in good time management. The highest achievers manage their time exceptionally well. By using the time-management techniques in this section, you can improve your ability to function more effectively – even when time is tight and pressures are high.
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign. – Victor Hugo
A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. – George Patton
Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put this plan into action. – Napoleon Hill
Meticulous planning will enable everything a man does to appear spontaneous.– Mark Caine
If you don’t know exactly where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? – Steve Maraboli
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. – Abraham Lincoln
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.– Alan Lakein
Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.– Henry David Thoreau
If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else. – Yogi Berra
I always say, don’t make plans, make options. – Jennifer Aniston
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. – Dwight Eisenhower
A goal without a plan is just a wish. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.– Donald Rumsfeld
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning. – Winston Churchill
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin
I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. That’s where the fun is. – Donald Trump
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. – Alexander Graham Bell
You cannot run at full throttle when applying your mindset to all of the different things running through your head. Focusing is the key to manifesting your desires. – Stephen Richards
To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacles. – T.F. Hodge
Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.– Zig Ziglar
Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. – Oprah Winfrey
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. – Mark Twain
One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.– Tony Robbins
Always focus on the front windshield and not the review mirror.– Colin Powell
Temperamentally anxious people can have a hard time staying motivated, period, because their intense focus on their worries distracts them from their goals.– Winifred Gallagher
It’s about focusing on the fight and not the fright.– Robin Roberts
What do I mean by concentration? I mean focusing totally on the business at hand and commanding your body to do exactly what you want it to do. – Arnold Palmer
Concentration is the secret of strength. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspiration is the windfall from hard work and focus. Muses are too unreliable to keep on the payroll.– Helen Hanson
Once taken off one task without completing the transaction, the mind continues to seek closure. Fight to stay focused on the task at hand. – Jeff Davidson
A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.-Charles Darwin
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.-Benjamin Franklin
Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!-Anthony Robbins
If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.-Lee Iacocca
It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?-Henry David Thoreau
Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.-Lord Chesterfield
You’re writing the story of your life one moment at a time.
-Doc Childre and Howard Martin
One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other.-Chinese Proverb
I don’t think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.-W. Somerset Maugham
It’s how we spend our time here and now, that really matters. If you are fed up with the way you have come to interact with time, change it.-Marcia Wieder
Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment. That is what’s real.-Sara Paddison
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.-Art Buchwald
Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.-Samuel Smiles
Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.-M. Scott Peck
Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.-Thomas Edison
A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.-Baltasar Gracian
One worthwhile task carried to a successful conclusion is worth half-a-hundred half-finished tasks.-Malcolm S. Forbes
You will never “find” time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.-Charles Bruxton
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.-Carl Sandburg
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.― Michael Altshuler
If you don’t write when you don’t have time for it, you won’t write when you do have time for it.― Katerina Stoykova Klemer
Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.― Carl Sandburg
Procrastination is the foundation of all disasters.― Pandora Poikilos
He who every morning plans the transactions of that day and follows that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.― Victor Hugo
There is only now. And look! How rich we are in it.― Vanna Bonta
The problem with procrastination is it’s been around since the beginning of time it seems.― Stephen Richards
You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.― Tony Morgan
A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
Understand one thing – the time is the only actual currency you have. Even though it might be daunting for some people, it’s the ultimate truth.― Neeraj Agnihotri
Good time management requires an important shift in focus from activities to results: being busy isn’t the same as being effective. (Ironically, the opposite is often closer to the truth.)Spending your day in a frenzy of activity often achieves less, because you’re dividing your attention between so many different tasks. Good time management lets you work smarter – not harder – so you get more done in less time.