Time as an Accountability Commitment

People talk about "Time Management", but that is a very superficial, unhelpful and misleading phrase. Time is something that cannot be managed. No matter what we do, it continues to pass and there is nothing we can do to stop that process.

You can't manage time...but it can manage you if you allow other people to take control of how you spend your time. The key to better "Time Management" is to change your relationship with time by learning to view it as an accountability commitment. I call that "Time Accountability".

The only way that we can "manage" Time is by managing the way that we choose to spend it. The only way is to become more selective about what we take on and to hold ourselves accountable for the choices we make.

That means transforming behaviors that have been with us a lifetime and it is not an easy thing to do. There is not a huge lake of extra time that you can simply access or a pail in the corner that you can reach into and bring out more time. You will not find a lake, but there are hundreds of small ponds. The problem is that to scoop time from those ponds you have to change your perspective.

The perspective needs to change from thinking about Time in the abstract to seeing Time as a concrete resource. We can do that by focusing on outcomes and then relating the way we spend our Time to the things that we can control and by holding ourselves accountable. That means identifying outcomes and then proactively managing the events, tasks and interactions with people that fill our days to drive towards those outcomes.

Lack of "Time Accountability" is one of the major factors that is holding back small business owners and stopping their businesses from growing. If you want to grow both personally and professionally, you have to spend your time differently. You have to move from a model where you simply allow things to fill your day to one where you take control and proactively identify the things that you want in your day. This involves a radical attitude shift in your relationship with time.

This involves changing your habits...and habit is a difficult thing to change:

· Take away the "H" and you still have a bit left

· Take away the "A" and you still have bit left

· Take away the "B" and you still have it left

This attitude shift and habit change starts with some basic exercises and techniques and this section is about:

· Finding and protecting your "Prime Time"

· Better understanding the value of your time,

· Reviewing the commitments you have made

· Planning how you can start to eliminate them

· Learning how to say "No"

· Avoiding future commitments