Success through effective self-management and time management
Introduction
In this article, I’d like to introduce you to a concept that can help you manage everyday life, your studies, work and business more successfully. Success means something different to everyone, so it’s important to define what it means to you. Perhaps managing your time through self-management is enough for you, but you may want to make more of your potential.
For this article, and from personal conviction, success means being able to make the most of yourself, move closer to your goals each day and ultimately achieve them.
I want to stress that success does not mean achieving a goal at the expense of your physical or mental health.
Table of contents
- What is time?
- What is time management?
- What is self-management?
- A better definition: an energy–time–value exchange?
- Routines for time management & self-management
- How successful people see time management
- Conclusion: success through time management
1. What is time?
First, understand that time is a human construct and, in a sense, does not exist. We count the hours, minutes and seconds. We remember, act and plan.
But we can exist only in the present, never in the past or future. Even the present can differ for two people on the same street moving at different speeds.
That is difficult to imagine, and a fuller explanation would go beyond the scope of this article. My point is that you need to understand that the past and future play only a secondary role!
Your present matters. What you actually do matters: your past actions influence you, as do your plans, but only what you do now truly shapes how you spend your time.
So, for this article, let’s define time as active creation.
2. What is time management?
According to this definition, time management simply means managing, handling, completing or doing different activities.
After all, you can’t take time out of your watch, put it in order and then say, “There, now I’ve managed my time!”
What you manage are activities that produce a result (for example, painting a picture, finishing an Excel spreadsheet or doing a workout). Since some activities make sense to do before others, you manage activities, never time!
In my view, ‘time management’ is therefore a misleading buzzword. In practice, it means directing your personal energy.
What is self-management?
Personal energy brings us to the next point. Given the description above, the term ‘time management’ now sounds much more like ‘managing yourself’, doesn’t it? After all, you can’t do anything to time: it is as virtual as our bank account, which consists only of 10011010010 in a computer.
We get closer to the fundamentals of time management when we call it self-management. We arrange our activities according to the effect we think they will have in helping us reach our goals. We then time ourselves or set a deadline so that we don’t spend too long on a problem or challenge. That can help. This virtual pressure, which feels very real, usually makes us work more efficiently. Thinking about a deadline—and how many deadlines we can realistically meet in a day, week or month—helps us decide which activities are genuinely relevant and which only seem to be, but ultimately drain our energy!
Our energy level is, after all, real and limited!
3. A better definition: an energy–time–value exchange?
Before we go on, let’s reflect briefly!
At the beginning, we defined time as ‘active creation’. Then we considered that time itself cannot be managed, but our energy or output can. Time helps us use that energy or output not only effectively, but also efficiently, and convert it into an activity that produces a result.
Time management, self-management—or whatever you want to call organising your activities within a set period—is therefore simply an exchange: exchanging your energy (over a period of time) for an activity or a result!
Expressed as a formula, it would be Energy * time = value/result. To define the value of the result, you need to know your goal, as mentioned at the beginning!
For most people, watching Netflix for 10 hours is a poor exchange. But if you earn a living by writing reviews, it may be the best exchange you can make.
To put this idea of exchanging time for value, or energy for value, into practice, you can ask yourself three simple questions before each activity:
- What is my goal?
- Why do I have this goal?
- How can I move closer to this goal today?
The first question helps you visualise where you want your journey to lead. The second reinforces your goal, for example by connecting it to your values. The last prompts you to consider which activities will actually bring you closer to your goal.
There’s a lot of noise in this world. Everyone wants something from you, whether it’s a letter about the broadcasting fee, an email with a new offer or a WhatsApp message from a relative. So ask yourself: what are my goals, why do I have them, and how can I move closer to them today?
4. Routines for time management and self-management
In the introduction, I wrote that the point is not to force your way towards a goal at any cost, only to end up burned out or hurt family and friends. It is about working steadily over time to improve at something, reach a goal and feel good in the process.
Routines are the key to a genuinely good exchange of energy and time for value.
Want to lose weight, get fitter or feel more comfortable in your body? You could go to a boot camp for 30 days and push yourself to the limit. By the end, you will probably have lost a few kilograms and improved your performance and stamina. But after returning home, 30 days later you may be right where you were 60 days earlier. Did you reach your goal? Probably not!
The same example could apply to almost anything. The point is that reaching a goal overnight is not what matters, and is almost never possible. It is about being able to keep investing the energy you put in today tomorrow, the day after and six months from now. As with an investment, the effect of compound interest applies here.
The best way to build routines into everyday life is to start by setting aside very small time slots for them. Want to exercise more? Start with five minutes every morning. After 2 weeks, increase that to 10 minutes. That is a 100% increase in two weeks. After 4 weeks, increase to 15 minutes or add a second time slot in the evening or at lunchtime.
With the right mindset, routines such as exercise and getting up early are easier to build. So start with the basics rather than the end goal.
6. How successful people view time management
That sounds extremely blunt and perhaps a little unhelpful, doesn’t it? Let’s look at why some people are successful:
Warren Buffett: One of the most successful investors. He is one of the few who, year after year, achieves an investment return of around 20%. He does not make 50% or 100% one year and then suddenly lose 30% the next. Millions of people entrust money to his fund and have never lost any.
Elon Musk: the richest person on our still-green planet. He achieved this by continuously creating value through businesses, starting with software and moving on to PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Neuralink, the Boring Company, Hyperloop and OpenAI. He did not start everything at once; he launched one project after another.
Mike Tyson: “The Baddest Man on the Planet”, “Iron Man” and “Kid Dynamite”. A boxing legend! He would never have earned those nicknames without training consistently.
7. Conclusion: success through time management
I hope this article has given you a thorough introduction to time management, self-management and exchanging energy and time for value.
Successful people know they need to make time work for them.
Successful people understand that time is not real, yet it still plays a role!
Successful people think in years or decades, and they know that anything is possible over such a long period!
Success is whatever you define it to be. For one person, it might mean having 100 billion in the bank; for another, becoming the world’s best star chef; for someone else, it might mean having a house, a spouse and three children.
It’s your decision, and no one else has the right to judge you for it!