Time Mastery vs. Time Management - Knowing the Difference

How much time do you spend on Mastering Your Time?  I don't mean managing time.  There is quite a difference between managing and mastering your use of time.  The goal of managing your time is to be more efficient, to squeeze more productivity out of your day.  There are a lot of benefits to being a good time manager, especially in a rushed and frenetically paced culture. 

The goal of mastering your time, however, is to live better, to savor your time?. which is just another word for your Life.   

 If you accept that your time is non-renewable, precious, then it makes sense to take this most valuable personal resource seriously, and devote to it the attention it deserves.  Look at Time Mastery as a way of actually lightening your load ? even if it paradoxically takes a little bit of time to lighten up.

Here's one approach to Mastery: Each morning, use some time to plan your time.  That is, picture your day ? what you want to accomplish, what things are urgent and what things can wait, what preparations it would be useful to make, and a high priority is to focus on what pleasures you are anticipating.  Those events and activities that emerge from this review which are most important go into your scheduler first, and everything else must fit around them.  That way, as you move through your day, you'll know what can be relegated to low priority; you'll know what requests to honor and which to refuse. 

By spending a very few minutes in focused concentration each morning, you can prevent the tendency we all have to allow our time to be appropriated by others.  Once you know what is necessary and desirable for now, it is easier to recognize the un-necessary and un-desirable, then eliminate the drip drip drip that adds up to an erosion of your non-renewable day.  

In short, using those few minutes in the morning to get clear is a small investment that helps you throughout the day to avoid the lost moments here and there that add up to a great chunk of time - your life.  Even better, a little planning helps you focus on making sure every day includes something to savor.

Judith Schwader, the Time Guide, is the creator and publisher of Time Mastery, an e-zine focused on the philosophy and practice of living in abundance through a conscious use of time.  To find additional guiding articles and subscribe to her FREE e-zine, visit www.masteringyourtime.com.