Timeless Time Management Problems

I’m re-writing my 1992 book “Time Management” for the second edition.

The world is a pretty different place since 1992.

Gone are filo-faxes, palm pilots, secretaries, and memos

In are emails, social media, smart phones, texts, bluetooth, wifi, apps, ….gosh in 1992 there were no websites to speak of, and even laptops were extremely rare (and big, and expensive)

So how has all this affected time management? All these efficiency tools: online synchronised diaries, jobs to do apps, instant communication, note taking and diary reminders on your phone, ….surely everything is much more efficient now?

The answer is NOT AT ALL

In fact in many ways the key time management issues have got worse:

Interruptions are worse than ever, with phones in our pocket, with us all the time.

Distractions are worse, with games, notifications, news apps, social media to scroll through.

Meetings are now on Zoom as well, so plenty of time for time wasters there.

Procrastination is just as common, since unpleasant things still have to be done, and there are many more ways to escape into the above distractions.

Multi-tasking is much more tempting, in fact encouraged and enabled by the ability to have numerous windows open at once on our computers, and the ability to look at our phone while watching TV, sitting in a meeting, even while walking down the street and, heaven forbid, driving. I usually have a podcast (new since 1992) playing from my phone (new) via bluetooth headphones/earbuds (new) while I’m walking the dog, or playing in my car using apple car play while I drive, so I’m multi-tasking all the time.

The problem of prioritising – whether to do urgent things or important things first, is as prevalent as ever.

Sending and assigning tasks has become quicker and easier. More messages come in via email / text / facebook and instagram messages / whatsapp than we ever used to get from just letters and answer-phone messages. In 1992 a hectic day would involve ten voicemails – now it can easily be 200 emails and a load of whatsapp messages, AND the phone and voicemail.

And just maintaining all the tech, fixing wifi problems, printer problems, website problems, is an extra raft of tasks to be done.

And finally there is the question of what sort of time management apps to use – its not just a diary or nothing now, it’s a whole lot of productivity apps, phone diaries, PC-based apps, and a nagging feeling that if we only had the right apps we could get on top of our time management without really having to change our actual habits.

So – it’s harder than ever, more important than ever – and DEFINITELY worth a second edition!

…. coming soon……