Time Management - Main Themes of Time Management

Main Themes of Time Management

The major themes arising from the literature on time management include the following:

• Creating an environment conducive to effectiveness
• Setting of priorities
• Carrying out activity around those priorities
• The related process of reduction of time spent on non-priorities

Time management has been considered to be a subset of different concepts such as:

• Project management. Time Management can be considered to be a project management subset and is more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time Management has also been identified as one of the core functions identified in project management.
• Attention management: Attention Management relates to the management of cognitive resources, and in particular the time that humans allocate their mind (and organizations the minds of their employees) to conduct some activities.
• Personal knowledge management: see below (Personal time management).

Professor Stephen Smith, of BYUI, is among recent sociologists that have shown that the way workers view time is connected to social issues such as the institution of family, gender roles, and the amount of labor by the individual.

In recent years, several authors have discussed time management as applied to the issue of digital information overload, in particular, Tim Ferriss with "The 4 hour workweek", and Stefania Lucchetti with "The Principle of Relevance"

Stephen R. Covey has offered a categorization scheme for the time management approaches that he reviewed:

• First generation: reminders based on clocks and watches, but with computer implementation possible; can be used to alert a person when a task is to be done.
• Second generation: planning and preparation based on calendar and appointment books; includes setting goals.
• Third generation: planning, prioritizing, controlling (using a personal organizer, other paper-based objects, or computer or PDA-based systems) activities on a daily basis. This approach implies spending some time in clarifying values and priorities.
• Fourth generation: being efficient and proactive using any of the above tools; places goals and roles as the controlling element of the system and favors importance over urgency.