Time management is a hoax. Time is merely the measure of passing events. You cannot manage time because it, like the sky above, it is inflexible and permanent. So don’t focus on time, but rather the tasks & events that make up your day instead. Event (or task) management is the closest you will ever come to actually managing your time. Expand your mindset of managing time to include managing people and resources who allow you get more done - and you will be creating time!
When you control a task or event, you will feel more in control of your life. Pick tasks/events that align with the things and people you love.
Use tools that allow you to collaborate and delegate. AuthorDock is great for keeping everything together and it's designed for collaboration and delegation. Desk.com is one I use, Toggl.com is another. But you should keep the tools as simple as possible, and revert back to a process page that can be accessed anytime/anywhere. Remember you need to travel light so you can be nimble when necessary.
I find that clients can become time abusers when I don’t provide them a system to create an effective use of time. Timing is a great way to look back on how you spend your time. For me, eMails can be the huge source of time abuse. I also have people in my life who knowingly or unknowingly abuse my time, and it’s been a difficult, but important choice to let them go. Time is a substance that can be abused just like any other. Be careful!
The time you spend contemplating, hesitating, not knowing what you want to do next is unnecessarily wasted time. But I also find it’s where I spend a lot of my time. In a world with infinite options and opportunities - time abuse through indecision is high. You need to make a decision. But it need not be difficult - you can follow the path of least resistance (as physics defines that energy will always follow the path of least resistance). Understanding this ‘law’ will safe you a lot of indecision time. It comes back to the WHAT vs. WHY concept. Why leads to indecision. What leads to action.
The cost of being attached stuck doing something you always have? It’s humbling to say the least when we find a quicker, cheaper, easier way to accomplish something. But don’t always expect that the path of least resistance for one person will be the path of least resistance for you. Yes, it’s important to define repeatable systems, but don’t get attached to your limited beliefs in what is possible. In the end, it’s the results that matter. I find that the word lazy can be dangerously misused. What if instead you defined ‘lazy’ as ‘the past of least resistance’? If you do, you may find that lazy actually gets more done. Redefine the words in your vocabulary that are holding you back in life.
The cost of not being organized (focus is impossible when you don’t know where to look). I’m guilty of this - I switch systems like the weather. I am always looking for the next ‘bright shiny organization system’ - but in the end, I believe much of it is due to my indecision on what to work on, regardless. Indecision created by an awareness of too many incoming opportunities. On a daily basis, I strive for ‘selective ignorance’ to stay focused on the task at hand. So, I’ve resolved to use one simple system comprised of as few as tools as necessary. For the most part, I can get 80% of my work down with 4 tools: Atom, Dropbox, AuthorDock, and PubWriter. It’s all online, sharable, and trackable. It can scale, and all exists in the cloud.