Self Management

"The Art of Self Management-Time As Gift As Well As Challenge" Part-1

As we evolve spiritually and personally it's not uncommon to develop a strong  sense of the gift time is to us. 

 Yet almost everyday, my clients, colleagues and friends -- and I'm sure many  you know, comment on what an enemy they can experience time to be. How often  do we all hear (or say!):          - there's never enough time 

         - there's time but I question how well I use it 

         - he/she wastes my time 

         - next week (or year) I'm SURE I'll have more time 

 The purpose of this article (Part #1) is to explore different approaches to  time and what time-relationships are for different kinds of people. Part 2  also posted here will include strategies and specific examples of how people  successfully managing S.e.l.f bring themselves to their day.  e. People are in that they can manage how they bring themselves to their time  available. 

 2. Time is the great equalizer. It's the only thing there is we each have in  equal proportion every full day of our life. 

 3. There is no right or wrong use of time -- it's all relative to individual  purpose. 

 Knowledge is power -- so one goal is for us to become more knowledgeable about  diverse ways we can bring Self to time and befriend it so it can better serve  vs challenge us. 

 To begin, let's go to Murphy's Law, Corollary 6: 

         "Whenever you set out to do something, something else has to be done first." 

 Prioritizing sometimes seems like managing and sorting a million changing  shades of gray. Ann McGee Cooper in her excellent book, "Time Management For  Unmanageable People," draws our attention to an amazing fact: our particular  culture/world is divided into two types of people in relationship to  approaches to time: 1) convergent thinkers and 2) divergent thinkers. 

 Convergent thinkers are those who jive to Franklin Planners, Day Times, and  who can fit right into the Stephen Covey/Roger Merrill model of 'First Things  First" absolutely beautifully. Convergers thrive on taking the whole, breaking  it down into smaller and smaller pieces, lining these up sequentially -- maybe  in the form of 'to do lists' or other means of prioritizing, and they simply  start at the beginning and/or at the end and work forward or backward. 

 It makes so much sense -- to a convergent thinker. 

 Then we have many of the rest (appx another 45% to 50%) -- divergent thinkers  in the approach to time. We scan the big picture, looking at a situation or  task from varied, new points of view, generating more facts and ideas,  creating a bigger and bigger view until we get a sense of the direction and  results wanted -- which we mainly intuit and arrive at via less than adequate  pre-known data for most others. But first -- we must find the outer  perimeter's of many if not all of the 'what 'if's' and it's not until then we  can begin to develop a series of action steps -- preferably to then take  simultaneously or in much like a hop-scotch pattern. 

 Divergent thinkers are those with a variety of piles -- all of which are  essential, all of which we are moving progressively forward -- it just doesn't  always look like it to the organized, sequentially ordered world of the more  left-brained. Convergent thinkers are those who can actually create and stick  to time-lines, critical paths with dates that stick, and schedules that flow. 

 I've taken the time to bring this contrast forward because the majority of all  of our most respected time-management systems may serve as a system of choice  for possibly only about 50% true of folk. If you've failed #101 Franklin Quest  or Day-Timer, give yourself a break and get McGee's book and dive into the  strategies instead for the highly creative who cannot write on a calendar that  size, much less stay inside the lines. 

 Most of today's thinking about goal-setting and being organized and time-  efficient is based on a belief in the importance of clock time. This is called  monocratic time. However, much of life's most important stuff happens in it's  own time -- not according to hands or symbols on a clock. These are  polychronic happenings in nature with many complex factors at play. For  example, creativity, 'eureka' breakthrough experiences, the experience of  'flow' -- some of our richest business and personal assets -- only happen  during polychronic experiences of time. This is when time flies and hours pass  when it only seems like minutes -- or when time stands still for us and tons  of time seems available and when only 5 minutes is more than enough to  achieve. Corporations and many entrepreneurs have now figured this out -- and  you are seeing more and more honoring of 'flex time' or of getting it done in  your own style and clock-time as long as you get it handled. 

 Larry Dossey, M.D., physician and holistic thinker, introduces us to what he  calls "hurry sickness" and the need for time therapies. He encourages all of  us who want to befriend time to discover who we are in relationship to it and  to honor how we fit into our timely world. 

 Physician Stephan Rechtschaffen, founder of the world-renowned Omega Institute  for Holistic Studies, brings our full attention to the timeless gift time can  be to us in his book, "Time Shifting." In this he also quotes Joseph Campbell:  " Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter. This is it. If you don't get  it here, you won't get it anywhere." 

 Rachtschaffen tells us the trickle-down approach to time has basically  'trickled out' in that expecting priorities in this order to pay off don't  work: First comes work; Second - primary relationship/family life; Third -  life's mundane chores; Fourth - social responsibilities; Finally -- if there  is any time left -- ourselves. 

 See the accompanying Part #2 of this article posted here for examples of who  many have managed Self productively in relationship to time will be brought  forward. 

 (c) 1997, Sherry Lowry, The Lowry Group/NexusPoint