Time Management like You've Never Considered Before

“You multiple your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that will give you more time tomorrow.”  Rory Vaden

I recently listened to a TED talk by Rory Vaden about time management.  At the heart of his message was the idea of multiplication or multiplying our time and how this is different than what most time management experts or theories teach.    

Two of the most commonly used theories for time management over the years have to do with efficiency and prioritization both of which are good but are ineffective in “creating” more time.  Unlike many time management strategies, time multipliers factor in the “significance” of what they are doing which in essence, creates more time.  In doing this, they change the time allocation question from ‘what is the most important thing I can do right now’ to ‘what can I do today that will make tomorrow better?’ 

With this in mind, when it comes to deciding how to utilize our time, rather than asking ourselves ‘how much does it matter’ we should be asking ‘how long will it matter?’  Vaden calls this the significance calculation and he implies this is how a multiplier “creates” time.  So, time multipliers focus on what tasks will make the future better by doing these three things. 

#1 Eliminate

Time multipliers eliminate things that won’t matter long-term.  There are many things we can eliminate from our life that aren’t really worth doing or at least won’t have a lasting impact.  Elimination of unhelpful or short lived activities will help us free up more time. 

#2 Automate

Again the question for time multipliers is what can we do now that helps create more time tomorrow?  Spending 3 hours to automate something today may not be the most important thing right at that moment or what matters most to you at that moment but it potentially saves you hours and hours of time in the future.  In a way, whenever we are able to automate, it takes our time and makes it in to more time. 

#3 Delegate

Those who multiple their time delegate.  They realize that since they’ve mastered a task others can as well.  And although there may be a little bit of extra time invested up front, in the long run it saves a multiplier a ton of time.    

What time management strategies will you use?  I suggest we think like a multiplier and improve our ability to “manage our time” through elimination, automation, and delegation.