December 7, 2006

the time management manifesto

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Rajesh Setty, author of “Beyond Code”, has writ­ten a very lucid Time Mana­ge­ment Mani­festo. Great stuff:

Making the most of your time
You can’t manage time. You can only manage your­self. Suc­cess­ful peo­ple manage to get a lot more out of their time. Here are nine things that you can focus on next year to make the most out of your time.

1. Exe­cu­ting on your current pro­jects flaw­lessly
No excu­ses there. None of the other items in the list mat­ter if you keep brea­king pro­mi­ses and go south on your com­mit­ments.
2. Strengthe­ning your per­so­nal brand
Whether you like it or not, you have a per­so­nal brand. It is “who you are” to the world. A per­so­nal brand, like any other brand is a pro­mise to the world.
Your per­so­nal brand or iden­tity in the mar­ket­place is impor­tant as it has direct corre­la­tion with the value that the mar­ket­place pla­ces on you. Here is how it always works – first you invest in your per­so­nal brand mea­ning first you work on your per­so­nal brand and then your per­so­nal brand works for you.
3. Buil­ding long-term rela­tionships
Long-term rela­tionships with power­ful peo­ple will pro­vide you the ulti­mate com­pe­ti­tive advan­tage. Invest in buil­ding them. Here are three things to remem­ber on rela­tionships:
• It is not what you know but who you know.
• It is not who you but how you know who you know
• It is just not who you know; it is who knows you.
4. Inc­rea­sing your capa­city to deli­ver
Who you are currently may not be ready to face the cha­llen­ges or take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties of tomo­rrow. You have to con­ti­nuously invest in your capa­city to deli­ver in the future.
5. Making a dif­fe­rence to the world
This world is what we make of it. Ever­yone has an uns­po­ken res­pon­si­bi­lity to make a posi­tive dif­fe­rence in this world. Without worr­ying about what your neigh­bor is doing, do something good.
6. Inc­rea­sing others’ capa­city to make a dif­fe­rence
You also have a res­pon­si­bi­lity to inc­rease the capa­city of peo­ple around you to make a dif­fe­rence. Lift them to a higher level in any which way you can.
7. Spen­ding time with friends and family
They say that we are blind to things that are very close to us. Family and friends typi­cally come into this cate­gory. You can take them for gran­ted and if you are bit late, you don’t have to worry as you won’t have them for you to take care.
8. Become a valued mem­ber in mul­ti­ple net­works
You can’t do everything alone. You have to not only belong to mul­ti­ple net­works but also be a con­tri­bu­ting mem­ber there.
9. Lear­ning and lear­ning to unlearn
The infor­ma­tion over­load is only going to get worse. Explore Mind­map­ping. Explore Acce­le­ra­ted Lear­ning. Explore Audio books. Explore Book Sum­ma­ries. Do something but don’t stop lear­ning with quo­ting lack of time.
It is also impor­tant to ensure that you leave behind those skills that may no lon­ger be rele­vant. In other words, learn to unlearn.

[gaping­void mani­festo sub­mis­sion gui­de­li­nes are here.][Mani­festo archive is here.]

4 Responses to “the time management manifesto”

  1. Sheamus says:

    Fab Mani­festo!

  2. deb schultz says:

    hugh — awe­some — thanks for sha­ring. Spot on.

  3. pat morphew says:

    way to go! only thing I can think of now is :
    “we judge our­sel­ves by our inten­tions, others judge us by our actions”

  4. Raj Setty says:

    Hello Hugh,
    Thank you for inc­lu­ding this and thank you for your kind com­ments. Would you be willing to con­tri­bute to the Quought for the Day series on my blog or donate one of your mas­ter­pie­ces for the series?
    Best,
    Raj