Chuck Terry’s Blog

 I have become fascinated by the concept of time management. We all have the same “bank” of time and how we choose to invest that most precious of resources will greatly determine how successful and happy we will be, however you define either of those conditions.

 I recently read several books on the subject of time and how we “spend” it, one of which was a completely radical departure from the traditional view of time management. The one common factor I have been able to determine from my studies on this subject is that you can either work harder or you can work smarter. Both are possible, although not often realized. The work harder or smarter axioms are both proven and defined by a couple of well recognized principles.

 The first principle that applies to how time is “invested” is the Pareto Principle. Vilfredo Pareto was a world renowned economist who established what has become almost universally known as the 80/20 rule. As it relates to time management, the rule would apply that 80% of our positive results from the time we spend at work are the product of 20% of the time we spend; and conversely, we are probably wasting the other 80% of our time on low yield activity. The same principle unfortunately applies to how we spend our personal time, as I demonstrated so well last evening by watching several hours of television! We can certainly use this rule to help us analyze and maximize our productivity by doing our best to find the 20% is that is yielding 80% of our results and spend more time on those type of activities. We can also eliminate much of the 80% that is low yield. This is the principle that both shows us how to work smarter and provides the road map as to how we might do that. Theoretically, you can potentially free up 80% of your work time by effectively leveraging this one principle. So why don’t people often work harder and smarter? Because most enterprising people who are leveraging the Pareto Principle on the job are using most of that extra time to do something more fun than working!

Let’s take a look at the principle that governs the “working harder” side of the equation. C. Northcote Parkinson discovered and published what was to become known as Parkinson’s First Law. The law states that work will expand to fill the time allotted it. In other words, if you have eight hours allocated to work in a day, your workload will always expand to fill it. You will be busy but not necessarily productive (see Pareto above). When you decide to work harder you are expanding the time you are spending on work related activities even though the results may not be proportionate to the extra time spent. In applying this principle we are almost always playing right into the negative side of the 80/20 rule. Boy, we sure are busy though!

Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights

Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.