Time management and the 21st century

I'm often asked by people with poor time management skills to help them learn the skill. I can't remember how often I've been asked if this would improve their career prospects. The short answer is that anything you learn that makes you more valuable to your employer would have been beneficial in the 20th century.

As the 21st century unfolds this will no longer be true. Day planners may in fact become a hindrance. Being consistently late for appointments or allowing project timelines to blow out are not desirable traits, but I need you to reflect on this point before continuing. Time management implies that systems external to your person are required because you are incapable of controlling your own actions. In other words you need to be told what to do.

How do you feel about that comment? Those of you who disagree and prefer to stick with tradition should follow this link, where the canny seeker will find many thousands of writers who share your feelings. As an employer, I worry about people who need external systems to manage their day.

If you're interested in learning more, read on.

Getting to know yourself
I recommend taking some time to get to know yourself, and then trusting your subconscious mind to prioritise tasks without too much intervention from your conscious mind.

Let me tell you how that works. The human brain provides us with many abilities, and quite a few tools as well, and possibly the most useful of those is our gut feel.

A gut feeling about something won't give you an explanation of why you feel the way you do, it only tells you yes or no. Many people assume this makes our gut feel an instinct we're born with.

To me a gut feel is more than just instinct, its a learned response formed through the consequences of our previous experiences. Instinct is more primal.

Learned responses, such as our gut feel, can quite easily lead us astray if we don't understand how they were formed. Typically, a previous bad experience results in negative (fearful) gut feelings whereas previous good experiences result in positive (anticipatory) gut feelings. Unfortunately, our subconscious mind has a tendency to think that repeating the activity that led to a previous bad experience will always result in a bad experience. And the same with a good experience.

Can you see the problem with this? As children we have little or no control over our own destinies. Our caregivers make decisions that as children we might not agree with for lack of understanding. So our subconscious mind creates a rule that says when you expect x or y to happen, then be afraid because the consequences won't be pleasant. Or the opposite. Even worse though, our conscious minds place too much strength on the advice of our subconscious and we ignore our learning. We all have the capability to learn from mistakes, or change our opinions as we learn more. Here is an example, a child may be frightened by a barking dog. As adults we understand that the dog is simply being protective and that a firm tone from us will usually make the dog back down. Yet we still get those gut feel butterflies in the stomach. See what I mean.

If we place too much importance on the meaning of gut feeling we may inadvertently make our situation worse. Ok, I think you get that, but I said above that I recommend using your subconscious to help you make decisions. Why am I contradicting myself?

The human brain isn't so simple that it is incapable of learning new tricks. The subconscious mind is no different. In all walks of life we see people learning new skills or putting aside ingrained beliefs. Coping in the 21st century looks increasingly like you are going to need to continuously learn new skills. Technology is progressing at breakneck speed, society is being affected by this, and so too are individuals. It won't be long before so much information is available to you that paper based diary systems will be too cumbersome. Even computerised diaries will be too restrictive.

Diaries suffer from linearity. One activity after the other. With increasing complexity will come the need to multitask way beyond anything we currently do. The people who can successfully multitask hundreds or thousands of threads will be the winners a couple of decades from now. And research is proving the human brain has these latent capabilities.

You can position yourself for the future by recognising that your past does not have to define your future. Much of what you've learned or remember of your life up until this point has nothing whatsoever to do with who you are, or what makes you unique. Think about that, and let me know your thoughts.