Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory

Organize Your Time
By Ernest Richardson

The Starting Point
The first and most important step in organizing your time is to develop a clear picture of who you are and who you want to become. (Check out the 12 Patterns for Abundant Living as point of departure.) The picture of who you want to become serves as the inspiration for effective time management. It is the template by which we measure our use of time. Time is a finite, limited resource. We don't know how much time we will ultimately get but it is certainly not limitless. Becoming the person you want to be requires goal setting. The goals you set for yourself can be expressed in years, months, weeks, days and finally hours. Organizing time becomes a process of articulating your goals, assessing the time needed to achieve those goals and allocating the time available.

Allocating Resources
The mechanics of managing time are relatively simple. We begin with the total time we have at our disposal. From that we subtract the time spent on essential activities and time spent on elective activities. We know there are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week so we have 168 hours at our disposal per week. How shall we allocate those resources? Let's look at essential activities first:

		Sleep = 56 hours (8 hours per night, 7 nights per week)

		Eating = 21 hours (3 meals per day at roughly 1 hour per meal)

		Travel Time = 7 hours (this varies but I'm confident that most Americans spend at least an hour per day going from place to place)

		Work/Educational Activities = 40 hours (Most people are involved in some kind of work, be it a job or running a household or educational activity so for the sake of argument let's assume 8 hours per day, 5 days per week.)

		Personal Grooming = 7 hours (another area that varies greatly but let's estimate roughly 1 hour per day)

Admittedly, there can be great variation in the above structure but, assuming that it reflects an average of time spent per week on essential activities, we have 37 hours left in our week.

Sharpening the Saw
Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, refered to the next category of time allocation as "sharpening the saw". The idea is that if our task is cutting wood, it is imperative that we start with and maintain a sharp saw. Perhaps you think you don't have time to sharpen the saw because you have so much wood to cut. The result is a lot of sawing but not much cutting.

What is the Saw?
The saw, according to Covey, is comprised of four dimensions of human nature - physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual. No matter who we are, no matter what we desire to become, these four broad areas need to be honed.

The Physical Dimension
Our bodies are the means by which we accomplish our goals. Sharpening our saw in this area involves taking care of ourselves, exercising, stretching, eating well, and excluding things that threaten our health and well-being. Like it or not, our bodies, like our cars, will only last so long - maintaining both leads to a much more pleasant ride.

The Mental Dimension
Our mind needs to be filled with positive, inspirational, motivating, and uplifting ideas, images, and thoughts. We need beauty in all its forms. We can regularly enhance our mental diet through activities such as reading, visualizing, planning, writing, and exploring the best this world has to offer. We need to set aside time to add these experiences to our lives.

The Social/Emotional Dimension
Our family, friends and community comprise this dimension. It has to do with our relationships with others and involves communication and cooperation. It revolves around spending time with the people we love and serving our community.

The Spiritual Dimension
The spiritual dimension has to do with our heart and soul. It involves our commitment to our value system. It ties us to ultimate truth. It affects our public lives but is also personal and, at times, private. Questions having to do with the ultimate meaning of life, the nature of the universe, our relationship with God, are pondered in this arena of our lives. The spiritual dimension can be a tremendous source of inspiration and peace.

Beyond the Saw
If we add sharpening the saw to our essential activities and allocate only 1 hour per day, 7 days per week, that reduces our available time for elective activities to 30 hours per week - just how important is that rerun of Friends you were going to watch now?

The way we invest our time speaks volumes about who we are. It is too important to leave to chance. Covey recommends planning our investment of time on a weekly basis. Begin with the things that are most important in your life; schedule them in first. Add the rest in your order of importance. Every hour becomes more precious as you begin to allocate them in this manner. Stay connected to the picture of who you want to be. Ask yourself what you are trying to accomplish as you plan your week. Though our time is certainly limited, there are ways to combine areas of time allocation. For example, scheduling lunch with a friend enables you to eat and invest in your friendship.

Final thoughts
There are a number of tools available to organize your time. I have a personal preference for the materials offered by Franklin Covey but there are numerous other options available. Unfortunately there is no silver bullet for effective time management. It takes a commitment to invest your time wisely and like all things of value it takes time.