Your Problem Is That You Carry Stuff Around

Babies know how to let things go. In seconds, he is back to a state of contentment as he drains the bottle. When they are angry, they are angry. When they are sad, they are sad. When they are finished playing with a toy, they are done with it. They don’t carry anything around. Each thing that happens to them is something new to be experienced in the moment. Your problem is that you carry stuff around. Over time, the accumulation becomes burdensome indeed. The next time you meet one, forget the history. Don’t expect that the interaction will be unpleasant. Expect that it will be delightful, and if it isn’t, then let it go.

All Above Board

Don’t carry it over to the next time you meet. Do the same with unpleasant situations. Note how many times your existing expectations sour your experience. Consciously drop the past. It’s hard, but with practice, you will get the hang of it. Quite a few handled multiple countries. Collectively, they were responsible for sales of several billion dollars. Many came up to me after my presentation and confessed that they had a problem managing their time. They wanted to do better and needed some help. Many came up to me afterward and confessed that they had a problem managing their time. They wanted to do better and needed some help. I also spoke to an eclectic audience comprising everyone from trapeze artists to Wall Street titans.

Who Cares

Many came up to me afterward and confessed that they had a problem managing their time. They wanted to do better and needed some help. You’re probably nodding your head in agreement. You too may think that you need to manage your time more effectively and are looking for ways to do so. You don’t need to manage your time better. You can’t manage your time better. There is nothing you can do to manage your time better. Each hour has sixty minutes, and each minute has sixty seconds. By the time you have finished reading this, you have used up ninety of those seconds. If you’re pious and altruistic and spend all your time helping out at soup kitchens, you don’t get a few seconds more. If you’re a sadistic serial killer, you don’t get a few seconds less. That’s just the way it is.

Bent, But Not Broken

You don’t need to manage time better. You need to manage yourself better. Time is something outside yourself. You can’t be held responsible for it. It is much easier to place the blame for failure on this external thing. But not being able to manage yourself? Now that is serious. It’s not something you can sweep under the carpet. It’s something that you have to grapple with and fix. What will your friends, your family, your colleagues, and your bosses think of you if you have a problem managing yourself ? Can you even afford to let them know? I doubt that you have a problem going up to a consultant and revealing that you need help managing your time. Perhaps you already have. Would you go up to the same person and confess that you need help managing yourself ? You do need such help! The alarm rudely woke Alice. For a moment she could not remember where she was, and then memory came flooding back. She should have finished it by now, but her college roommate had been in town for two nights, and they’d had so much to catch up on. She was late for work. She nicked herself shaving her legs. It was a deep gash and opened up again when she put on her dress. She put a cotton ball on it held in place with a bandage. Ditching her dress, she wore a pantsuit instead. She tried to retrieve the document that she was working on. The screen impersonally told her that she had performed an illegal operation and it would now close. She had been having this problem for a while and had meant to have the tech guys look at it. Walking outside, she asked her secretary to use her office and seated herself at the secretary’s desk. She pulled up the report. Her boss needed a file on a current project right away. She had known that her boss would need it and had planned last week to have it updated and ready. Somehow she’d forgotten. That had been the evening they’d all gone bowling after work. She decided to tell her boss what she intended to put in her memo. Nowhere as effective as giving him the finished memo but the best she could do at the moment. She came back to find her girlfriend from purchasing in her office. Would she like to have lunch? When she got back to the office, she was mellow. She just couldn’t concentrate on the report. She was almost home when she remembered that she had forgotten to include a key section on valuations. This had been done by the new person in banking, and she had received it a week ago. She rushed back to the office, retrieved the missing section, and went back to the top floor. The martinet was still there and accepted it gracelessly. She was tired, dead tired. Maybe she could stop by her favorite bar on the way home. She really needed a drink. Does Alice need to manage time? Many of the distractions that sap your energy just disappear. This will drive home that you don’t really have a problem managing time. You do have a huge problem managing yourself. That Monday morning is something you look forward to with great eagerness. That you derive deep meaning and sustenance from your labors and that this satisfaction increases with each passing day. A senior executive in your organization calls you to an urgent meeting in his office. Business prospects are uncertain. The good news is that you will be retained. The bad news is that your pay will be cut in half.