the athroom b of bookTIME by Don Phin THE ATHROOM B OF BOOKTIME By Don Phin, Esq. Other Books by Don Phin: Lawsuit Free: How to Avoid Employee Lawsuits Building Powerful Employment Relationships Victims, Villains and Heroes: Managing the Emotions of the Workplace with Loy Young Job Security From Chaos to Order: Building a Lifestyle Business Time Management that Works Copyright © 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 Don Phin, Esq. 114 C Ave. # 200 Coronado, CA 92103 www.donphin.com CONTENTS Introduction .....................................................................7 We All Have the Same Amount of Time, and Every Second Counts ................................................................8 Work, Play, and Sleep .....................................................9 Time Management is the Ultimate Balancing Act ........10 How You Use Your Time Has Processional Impacts ....11 “If I Had More Time, I Would...” ..................................12 “I Don’t Have Time Because...” ...................................13 Good Time Management is Not a Choice .....................14 Do You Know Where Your Time Goes? .......................15 Stay On the Beam .........................................................16 Try Not to Multi-Task ...................................................17 Plan Your Time..............................................................18 Do First Things First .....................................................19 Early to Bed, Early To Rise ..........................................20 Plan Your Meals ............................................................21 Stop Doing Something ..................................................22 What Tools Can Save You Time? ..................................23 Go Automatic ................................................................24 Let Someone Else Do it ................................................25 Learn to Say “No” .........................................................26 Cut Out the “Gotta Minutes” ........................................27 Find Quiet Time ............................................................28 Don’t Waste Time Worrying .........................................29 Keep Meetings Short .....................................................30 Get Organized ...............................................................31 Take Control of Information — or Information Will Take Control of You ...............................................................32 Look for the Opportunity in “Wasted” Time ................33 Don’t Procrastinate! ......................................................34 Give it Less Time ..........................................................35 Protect Your Free Time .................................................36 Protect Your Family Time .............................................37 Give Time its Due .........................................................38 The Breadth of Time .....................................................39 We are a Blip in Time ...................................................40 You are the Breadth of Time .........................................41 Layers of Time ..............................................................42 Seeing Time ..................................................................43 How Time Got its Name ...............................................44 Time Translations ..........................................................45 Days of the Week ..........................................................46 Months of the Year ........................................................47 Calendaring ...................................................................48 Measuring Time ............................................................49 Time Clocks ..................................................................50 How do You Set Time? .................................................51 What if we Eliminated Second Hands? ........................52 We Have Much More Time Than Our Ancestors .........53 Cultural Impacts on Time..............................................54 What if You had Lived Before the Keeping of Time? ..55 The Timeline .................................................................56 Time Has an infinite Number of Directions ..................57 Time Capsules ...............................................................58 Time and Water .............................................................59 Time and Biology ..........................................................60 Your Body Will Decline Over Time, but You Don’t Have to ...................................................................................61 Time Relates to How You Feel .....................................62 Time Stories ..................................................................63 Mom and Dad Affect Your View of Time .....................64 Victims of Time .............................................................65 Time and the Good Samaritan .....................................66 Sacrificing Time ............................................................67 No Regrets ....................................................................68 Be Here Now .................................................................69 Try Some Silence ..........................................................70 Have a Blackout ............................................................71 Go for a Float ................................................................72 Watch Something Grow ................................................73 Your Words influence How You Use Your Time ...........74 Expanding Your Understanding of Space Expands Your Understanding of Time .................................................75 Space Time ....................................................................76 Your Time in Space .......................................................77 What if You Could Stop Time? .....................................78 What if You Wanted to Speed Up or Slow Time? .........79 What if You Could Go Backward in Time? ..................80 What if You Lived Time Backward? .............................81 What if You Could Leap Forward in Time? ..................82 What if Time Were Fragmented? ..................................83 Does Time Even Exist? .................................................84 What if You Knew Your Time Was Ending? .................85 What if You Knew Your Time Would Never End? .......86 What if Time Were An Endless Loop? ..........................87 What if You Couldn’t Remember Time? ......................88 What if You Knew You Would Get Another Time Around? .........................................................................89 What if You Knew there Was No Afterlife? ..................90 You Create Time ...........................................................91 Time Quotes ..................................................................92 Common Time Sayings .................................................97 Some Time Songs .........................................................98 A Word of Thanks .........................................................99 Online Forms ..............................................................100 About Don Phin ..........................................................101 7 INTRODUCTION Time envelops us. It is at the center of all things. Its measurement defines our age, years of marriage, schooling, service, work, and so much more. Many of us feel overwhelmed by time. Do you know anyone interested in success who is not running at 75 mph? Might you be one of those people? How does the time pressure feel? Or, as Dr. Phil might say, “How’s time working for you?” You can’t grow, buy, save, or cheat time. All you can do is use it wisely. How we use our time defines how we live our lives. No one is rich in time except for he who manages it well. Time is not just about dealing with pressure in the moment. It is much grander than that. When we expand our notion of time, we expand our notion of ourselves. As we progress through this book, I will treat you to some deeper and fun thinking about time. Here’s my goal: to give you strategies that help you feel good about your use of time and make you generally more “aware” about time. That’s all that matters, anyway. Of course, it helps if we use our time for things that feel good — and are good for us! Let the journey into time begin. 8 WE ALL HAVE THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME, AND EVERY SECOND COUNTS There are only 24 hours in a day. The good news is that each day consists of more than 86,000 seconds! Think of all that can happen in a second. In this tiny space of time, you can fall in love, get in an accident, or make a major decision. What significant things have happened to you in just a second? 9 WORK, PLAY, AND SLEEP Most people work more than 40 hours per week. Most people take 2 weeks of vacation or less. Most people get less than a full night of sleep. That’s a lot of work without much time off! What’s your proper balance of work, play, and sleep? 10 TIME MANAGEMENT IS THE ULTIMATE BALANCING ACT There are five main areas (the “Big Five”) in which we need to manage our time well: relationships, health, career, finances, and spirit. We don’t need to spend an equal amount of time in each area — only enough time to remain balanced. Mismanagement of time in any of these five areas impacts the other four. For example, if we don’t spend enough time maintaining good health, we are guaranteed relational, career,