Study Plan

“If I want something to happen, I must assign it a date and a duration”.

Chinese proverb.

We have always found gaps in the theoretical part when it comes to time management. There is an abundance of recommendation lists, but there is not enough systematic treatment of such a daily and important issue like time management. And not just time applied to work tasks, but also time focused on personal life.

Some books on the subject have been developed and can be found in libraries. Many of them are written by Anglo-Saxon authors. Some are undoubtedly good works. However, the value of time and its management is not the same in the mentioned cultures as it is in Latin cultures. It’s not a dramatic gap, it’s just different, and that’s why we need to approach it with our own lenses.

What has been written is scarce in comparison to such an important topic. It’s curious how many times a subject that surrounds us daily is minimized as something trivial and ordinary. And because it’s ordinary, it hasn’t been systematically addressed, and by not being addressed systematically – like so many things, such as negotiation, for example – it causes us daily headaches. In a way, there’s a gap that needs to be filled thoughtfully, seeking the best integration, hoping that one day, within the field of education, we will fill the need to address these issues, which may seem very basic but have a profound impact over the course of a lifetime.

Two warnings at the beginning of this Course for our students: the first is that we have tried to develop the presentation in an unconventional way, seeking not only to capture interest but also to force a recognition of things that happen to us every day, which we sometimes want to ignore, or which we directly ignore because we feel their consequences but don’t know their causes. These things form the basis of most of our problems. Therefore, we seek your sincerity, which we consider essential to achieve the results that you and we aim for.

The second point is that this is a very practical course and we expect immediate application. From the combination of both warnings, we will be able to see its true value and richness. To be more specific, it’s unconventional because it addresses a set of issues that are missing in traditional texts, and it’s very practical because it aims to equip the participant with a series of immediately applicable tools, with verifiable results, so that the influence of new knowledge is felt from the very first moment.

The importance of developing a Time Management Course has to do with one of the most important human activities: doing. Doing in work, in profession, in family relationships, in moments of leisure, in short, in your whole life. As an attribute of human activity and as a resource of high scarcity – time slips away from us – with which we must ally ourselves, the usefulness we believe this course holds for each of its participants almost explains itself. Quickly, from the first lesson, each of you will realize why.

Work Plan | Focus of Each Class

Developing a course of this nature – even though we have insisted that it will be brief, concise, and practical – is very important, given that in many aspects there seems to be a certain indifference towards the actual usefulness of studying time management and time administration. Many times, we observe in reality a sort of oversimplification of things, where people tend to think that issues are resolved by some invisible hand or purely out of interest, or by a flash of inspiration. However, most of us feel like prisoners of time. And it would even be foolish to challenge anyone to say they don’t feel this way or haven’t felt this way at some point in their recent existence.

It is crucial to understand that much of the competitiveness that concerns us today, in both global and local contexts, is not determined solely by material or tangible elements. A large part of competitiveness has to do with management ability, and this ability is closely tied to how we manage the resource of time and how we allocate it.

This Course is precisely designed to lead us to a deep reflection on how we use time and how we could use it better. But not out of a simple perfectionist desire, but for something much more important: because it’s a resource that is, in a way, tyrannical, behaving independently of our desires. If we act as its enemies, we suffer the consequences. The key is to see how we can be allied with this resource. Managing time is like sailing: in a storm and against the wind, results will be worrying. We must learn the course and follow it, because it is the only way we will achieve what we’ve asked for – to be allies of time.

Thus, we developed this Course to assist you in a change of habits. Habits that were adopted naturally, so naturally that many times we don’t realize when they become harmful. We want to achieve not only reflection but effective change, where a different path is taken in how we conceive time and manage it, with the goal of no longer mismanaging it – which is always kinder than saying “wasting” it – and being part of that change. We hope to achieve the inner satisfaction of knowing that together, we’ve reached an important goal: to feel a little less enslaved by time and a little more free.

We can graphically illustrate this to convey once and for all the importance of what we’ve designed: to begin, what do you think of the following story: “Imagine that every morning a bank credits you with $86,400.” No documents, signatures, or guarantees are required, and every day it credits you the same sum, which you need to live. It doesn’t accumulate the balance from the previous day, nor does it allow the account to be overdrawn. It doesn’t accept deferred payments or 30-day deposits. And when the day ends, it considers the unused balance as lost. What would you do? Withdraw every last cent, of course!

This story is very apt to begin this course because it turns out that time is one of the resources that cannot be saved or stored. There is no possibility of “saving time.”

We can’t choose between saving or spending time; there is no option other than to spend it, or rather, “invest it.” So we must discover how to use it more effectively. Despite all efforts, it’s not possible to open an account at the Time Bank, and the only final options are: spend it or invest it. We can never manage it with complete and absolute rationality, but we can organize ourselves enough so that our investment with productive results exceeds our spending.

Throughout our lives, we have something in common with everyone else, no matter our social position, race, creed, or any other division we could think of. We all have in common 24 hours a day. Therefore, how we handle that time period depends solely and exclusively on each person.

An interesting exercise is proposed by K. Gleeson, posing the following questions: Do you feel like you’re always running out of time?

• Do you feel like you have a lot to do?
• Do you feel overwhelmed by everything happening at the office?
• Do you feel like most of the time you are buried in piles of paper?
• Would you like to have more time than you currently have to do what you want?
• Do you often work overtime, at night, or on weekends to catch up on tasks you can’t do during business hours?
• Do you get tense about what you haven’t managed to get done?
• Can’t you focus on the long-term improvement of your life and work because you’re constantly dealing with a crisis or an excessive workload?
• Do you wonder if you are really achieving what you want in your work and life?
• Would you like to get better results in relation to the time and effort you invest in your work?
• Would you like to rest or take vacations more frequently?

Gleeson expresa que “la mayoría de las personas responden con un sonoro “sí “cuando se les hacen estas preguntas. Si usted también contesto “sí“, se va a llevar una agradable sorpresa: estos problemas pueden ser solucionados. Puede lograr lo más importante para su trabajo y para usted, y aún tener tiempo libre para sus asuntos personales, para su familia y para las demás cosas que quiere realizar.

Classes Plan

The course structure is organized around five major lessons of progressive and consecutive development.

The first lesson: development of the concept of effective time management and a diagnosis of how we are currently using it. The first grouping contains diagnostic content and should allow us to obtain a broad picture of how we are currently spending our time, while also detecting where we have leaks, wastes, or areas that could be more productive.

The second lesson focuses on the analysis of general principles for time management, from universal principles to managing priorities and urgencies. It should contribute to a reflection and review of what things, actions, and tasks we consider as priorities and urgencies, while also analyzing the content of each of them, to reorganize the use of our time.

The third lesson introduces methods for effective time management. From analyzing the generations of time management to analyzing the development of skills for managing it. Effectiveness is one of the key issues in the new management we are proposing and provides us with an alternative view of “how” we are currently doing things.

The fourth lesson focuses on one of the key topics for time management: time thieves or time stealers, aiming to understand them in detail to complement the vision of previous lessons. It is necessary to examine our object from all angles: both positive and negative. By adding both aspects, we will have a complete view that will be functional to our objectives. Recognizing time thieves in our daily management will allow for reduction and create different habits that help reduce them, and, where possible, eliminate the time destroyers. In this lesson, we will also address forms of procrastination and examine formulas for controlling it.

The fifth lesson contains the conclusions, in the search for effective time management. For this, a series of methodological changes will be proposed to substantially improve management based on the errors identified and the proposed improvement formulas.

Who is it aimed at?

Everyone. Absolutely everyone who lives in society. It is not a trend, but rather a skill that has always needed to be cultivated and developed. Whately taught some time ago that “lose an hour in the morning and you’ll be searching for it all day.”

In today’s world, it is increasingly true that studying time management is essential for all. Regardless of sex, age, profession, or condition, everyone is almost “condemned,” to use a euphemism, to manage time in the same way they are destined to live, because, as it has rightly been stated, “managing time is learning to live.” Everyone manages time; everyone needs to do so. What differs is whether it is done well or in the most efficient way. We all constantly use time as a resource.

That’s why it’s crucial to understand the benefits of managing it better, especially in a more conscious way, which is the first step toward doing it better.

Additional tools:

Each course is composed of concrete tools that participants will find applicable to their reality from the very beginning.

We provide a series of deepening resources (TED Talks, articles, work sheets, and videos) so that participants can expand the base of resources for each.temática que se aborda en las clases.