TIME MANAGEMENT

A critical component and a precious asset that has been recently added to the list of resources for individual, group and organizational functioning is TIME. It is the seventh m (minutes representing time), as domain of general management; the other six being man, money, machines, materials, market, methods.

A very trying problem that many in the organization, including managers meet the insidious difficulty of managing time. They have expressed their desire to assert more control over their schedules. However, the ever-present time problem persists and exists. Most often, it can not be defined nor denied.

Queries about time element have surfaced. What is the nature of time? How is it perceived? How is it understood? Why are we faced by this problem?

PERCEPTION OF TIME

When material things like buildings, furniture, and supplies are destroyed or when money gets lost, they can be replaced. But when time is lost, it is gone forever. It can not be recouped for time is not only fleeting. It is irreversible; it is irreplaceable. Also it is transitive and successive. It moves on a certain order that can not be changed. It cannot be compressed, extended, expanded or reordered; it cannot be stopped physically. In this sense time is OBJECTIVE.

However, time can also be subjective; it can be highly relative. It is a person oriented, value-laden and culture bound.

It is interesting to observe that individuals having same culture could have great differences in the way they perceive time. Certainly, a Filipino living in a remote island like Tawi-Tawi in Mindanao would consider time lightly compared to his co-Filipino living in Manila. In this sense, time is also situational.

For some people, time seems uneven in pace. Now slow, now fast -- depending on one's moods, feelings, disposition, expectations and aspirations. "A watched pot never boils" is a cliche that demonstrates how one's state of anxiety affects his perception of the length of time a pot boils.

A bank manager waits endlessly but patiently for a late but rich client who expressed his plan to transfer his account to this bank from another bank. But the clock clicks its minutes away fast when the client arrives and tells him personally the good news.

While we Filipinos generally do not fuss over an activity that starts even an hour late, the Westerners and the Japanese consider it a "crime" when others let them wait. In cultures where natural rhythms of the sun, water, and soil predominate, time is relative to a man's harvest which bounty he has waited while appreciating nature's gifts by the wayside. For him, time is not of the essence. He enjoys eternity.

But time is objective and impersonal to men of action like businessmen and managers who live and thrive in a world of competition and material ambition. Timekeeping for them is time serving. They are the servomechanism of the clock. In fact, others are blamed for a manager's inability to control his time. This is, however, an overly rational approach.

Why do people waste time if it is a valuable resource? Two reason can be ventured here: there is plenty of time to waste and there is not enough to do. Again, this is a value-laden thought depending on one's purposes and goals.

The old proverb: If you want to get a job done, give it to a busy man" is very apt. The person who accomplishes little is one who has plenty of time doing nothing. The caution, "If you don't have anything to do, don't do it here" is a good warning. It is easy to understand why people would like to waste time when they do not have anything to do. What is perplexing is why some busy people still waste time, especially those who are aware of time management techniques.

Too many of us, time has escaped our attention because of its elusive and invisible nature. It cannot be accumulated but can only be spent as it becomes available. It is a limited resource, so are other managed resources like funds, equipment, and staff. This problem besets the manager who has not been taught on how to manager such a resource that comes continually.

(excerpt from: Management of Human Behaviors in Organizations by C.R Rodil Martires & G. Fule)