In late 2006 I found an old 1920’s course on Efficiency (claimed to be the world’s first ever) from the Emerson Institute of Efficiency.

I then realized getting organized is impossible in today’s modern lifestyles…

That what we’re all really after is to be efficient.

See the free ebook What It Really Takes To Get Organized.

Then in 2007 I re-read the story of Ivy Lee and his 1930′s time management technique of prioritizing… and that made me realize how time management training is 80 years out of date!

See the free ebook on the 3 Obsolete Time Management Techniques (and what to do about it)

In 2008 I learned a little more about Albert Einstein’s ideas from the 1940’s, who offered the following idea about time:

“The train does not arrive at the station at 7:00 p.m. The train arrives at the station at the same moment the hand on the clock reaches seven p.m.”

“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.”

When you get up in the morning, go through your regular routine and finally sit down to work…how effective and productive are you for that first half hour or so?

Do you dive directly into high-value, profitable work?

Or do you fumble around, figuring out what needs to be done first, checking through some papers on your desk and then finally getting started on something?

For most of us, the true answer usually falls somewhere in between these two extremes.

We don’t dive directly into a state of maximum productivity. But nor are we a complete mess.

But most of us could do better.

And we could all benefit significantly from being able to jump into top gear within a few minutes of sitting down each day.

In fact, if you think about it carefully, you could increase your income dramatically simply by shortening the time it takes to get into that top gear each day.

How can you do it?

Here are two things you can do that will help.

First, be sure to update your schedule and to-do list at the END of each day. In other words, before you finish work for the day, get everything ready and prepared for the next day.

This means that when you first sit down to work, you’ll be ready to get started immediately.

Second, do a quick audit of the ways in which you waste time at the beginning of the day. How much time do you spend reading emails that are just not important or of value to you? How much time do you spend on news sites? How many blogs and feeds do you follow?

Ask yourself which of these activities are a good use of your time, and which of them waste your time.

You’ll find a lot more on how to make the most productive use of your time in Writing Rituals. But these two tips alone will help you wake up productive and increase the value of the time you spend at your desk each day.

For more information on how to increase your productivity, find out about the Writing Rituals method…

(this applies just as much to copywriters as it does to managers or business owners that need to get effective things done efficiently.)

In today’s fast-paced environment, you may be feeling that you’re falling behind on all the work you need to finish. One way to keep organized and maintain control of your life is to boost your productivity levels.

Being “productive” means getting more done in less time, eliminating stressful time wasters, and having more time for yourself and your family.

The Productivity Strategy Cashmap will show you how you can become more productive and organized, so you can reach your dreams faster, and still have enough time to enjoy all the good things in life!

Download the Productivity Strategy Cashmap for FREE and you’ll be just moments away from learning:

Why multi-tasking doesn’t work and what kind of “work strategy” does (nail this and you’ll finish your to-do list in half the usual time)
How to avoid the two secret time wasters that few people know about, but everyone encounters
One sneaky way you could be sabotaging your productivity without being aware of it – and how to avoid it using an easy “productivity booster”
and much more…

Get the productivity strategy map.

This is a great time management video with psychologist Zimbardo on time perspective.

Check it out:

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He identifies 3 orientations to time management.

People are either:

• future oriented – anticipated consequences, cost benefit analysis, what will be – life goal-oriented or transcendental life after death
• present oriented – what is – hedonism / fatalism
• past oriented – what was – positives or negatives

The most successful people are future oriented, future focussed.  Because they put off instant gratification for the greater rewards and benefits that comes from discipline and coraling of assets and progress.

Neothink brings integrative thinking to your time management.

Consider your schedule as one giant super-puzzle.  Where you must fit all of the pieces together to build the full and complete picture of your life success.

Neothink supports that through the process of gaining control of wide scope thinking.

You can also explore a detailed discussion of integrative thinking.

I’ve not posted here for a long while because of my new professional development website over at www.gavrielshaw.com has taken precedence.

Over there you’ll find insider short-cuts to professional development with a focus on productivity, management, and marketing.

For the best time management system available by far.. and I know because I developed it after reviewing every book, course, and training program I could find, check out the InstaTime Time Management System.

One of the biggest time stealers in my life right now, is doing updates to my websites.

Just the other day my time management website crashed. Now I’m thinking of changing webhosts.  That takes time, lots of it.

Every moment is vitally important to me.  Some moments are used up by a general relaxed milieu of not accomplishing or doing very much at all. 

Forgive me.

But most of my time is geared towards something far more productive, pressing, or useful than I see most of my peers doing.

But then I run into those hurdles.  Car problems. Website problems. Whatever it is, they steal plenty of my time.

What are your major current time stealers?

Do you have a list?

I’m going to do a list of my own… I might share them here

Here are a few other blog posts I found on the matter…

10 Time-Management Problem Areas – The five deadliest words in time management are “Have you got a minute?” Everyone is a culprit: colleagues, your boss, suppliers. Knowing how to deal with interruptions is one of the best skills you can learn. Ineffective delegation. …

The Pros and Cons of Time Management Training – In fact, some of your best performing employees may have problems managing their time. What this means is that when they actually do choose to work, they are likely to produce the best results. These are the type of employees that you …

Time Management – Someone gave me description like this;- If someone came late to the meeting particularly you’re the chair, then you have opportunity to re-arrange the schedule and you have extra time to think about the problem. …

Here’s a quick time management self review.

It’s mid-week, Wednesday in fact.

I need to spend an hour or so tidying up my current project plans.

Then brush up the next step actions for each.

Once I’ve done that I’ll probably feel a little easier about my time management. 

For even though I’m doing the right stuff, I just have that niggling feeling that I’m not quite in enough control, that I’ve got too many open loops floating about my head

A major part of time management is having full relaxation that you have everything accounted for, and if you’re carrying things in your head, which you might obviously forget, then you certainly don’t have everything controlled and accounted for, and thus you don’t have time management control.

So I’m going to go update my project notes right now.

Here are some other blog posts on Self-Reviews…

Six Components of a GTD Review – The “game” of trying to empty Outlook inboxes and raise my NAA score has provided just enough incentive to get me to plug my GTD leaks and attack those lingering “high cringe factor” items clogging up my dashboard. …

Online tool review: GTDagenda – I’d like to share my findings with you in case you’re looking for the next online tasks and projects management tool which follows some of the best ideas of David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) approach. …

GTD: Weekly review links – Updated: I completely forgot about a previous GTD/Weekly review post. Spring break is approaching fast. The power of the Getting Things Done lies in the trusted system philosophy: if I completely trust my system, I’ll use it all the …

Yesterday the Time Management System Lattice site went down, partly due to the new videos that I’m uploading and people viewing them. 

Once the site came back (after bandwidth issues were resolved with the webhost by my tech guy), I was able to send a new video on time management to everyone who has got the free InstaTime report that is still available on the home page.

Check out the InstaTime Time Management Report and you’ll also get access to some new time management videos.

I’m currently creating screen-cam videos or slideshow presentation videos for different areas of time management, including How To Prioritize, Obsolete Time Management Techniques, and much much more.

In 2006 I conducted a small time management system seminar on a tropical island in Thailand.

It was a 30 day dedicated frenzy of testing all manner of time management techniques on myself, and reporting my findings, successes and failures, to the group of clients involved.

Then in 2007 I released the TimeLattice Time Management System.  A new paradigm in time management that I stumbled on through doing that gruelling 30 day attempt at getting old time management techniques to work.

I really did discover some incredible and insightful things.  I doubt it was my intelligence.  But just the fact of 30 days total immersion and dedication to time management.

But now again around the turn of 2008 I have found an even simpler way of delivering the same natural time management results from the Time Lattice.

I’ve called it InstaTime.

And this blog will chronicle the journey of tying InstaTime into every other time management system, along with the evolution of InstaTime with modern personal organization software, new time management books that are published, and my battle with traditional time management techniques that I have exposed as obsolete, and even dangerous, to your time management success.

On the website homepage you can get the FREE InstaTime Report.

It’s great to finally be starting a new time management blog.

Here’s a few other recent posts from the blogosphere…

Time Management – Finally Accomplish Your To Do List – Time Management Do you find yourself rushing through your afternoon , stampeding to the door, making your way through traffic only to arrive an half hour late for work because you had to wait for the train? How does the rest of your day …

Time Management For the Hopeless Writer – Dare I hope that my struggle is over? Could this be what you’re looking for, too? If so… well okay, you can thank me for the tip. Or send chocolate. *Leo Babauta, who wrote ZTD (Zen to Done) also has an excellent time management blog. …

Some Practical Time Management Techniques – A lot of people end up clamoring for time management techniques. This is especially true for people who just have so many things to think about in their lives while they are left with little to no room left to relax. …