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The truth about time management

Of all the tings I don’t get in this world, this particular (myth) confounds more than most. What is time? And can you really ‘manage’ it? Of course time cannot be managed. It cannot even be properly understood.

We perceive it to be and record it as a linear experience that somehow passes us by with supreme consistency. It is how we measure everything, even our lives; yet the great philosophers and the great scientists still grapple with the concept. We all labour under serious fallacies when it comes to the concept of time, but when a Manager pronounces that a certain individual cannot manage ‘time’ we nod sagely and thankfully – glad that it is not us.

Nobody can manage time. Some people might struggle to prioritise – but in the absence of some great Ultimate Truth that definitively determines that one task is more important than another – not many people can point a finger at those who get it wrong. Others simply work more slowly, but that is no sin either.

When you are tagged with this ‘problem’, it is the kiss of death. Because it does not exist, it is incurable!

Many would argue that modern man is time poor. How is that possible when time is infinite? How is it possible if time is constant? There has never been more of it and there never has been less of it. It does not cease when we die. Time does not fly. Time cannot be planned, lead, organised or controlled – hence it cannot be managed. Time is the ONE thing you can stake your life on that does not discriminate and that every single person in the world will be treated the same by ‘Father’ time.

There is nothing any person can do to change one aspect or characteristic of time; but that does not prevent a manager from accusing a subordinate that he or she has poor time management skills. But the fact of the matter is that in the modern society we are not time poor. We are option rich. We don’t have less time; we just have more options that we may or could exercise in the amount of available time. But it does not sound good to say we are option rich because that implies it is something that may be treated very simply. Ignore some options or refuse to exercise them. Simple.

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