Organizing or Managing Time? Part III

How many of us use the words ‘managing’ and ‘organizing’ time as interchangeable terms? While they are linked, they are not synonyms of each other.  We all have the same time available, so why do some people seem to use time better than others?  Perhaps it’s because they can organize and manage time well.

Someone in my past was focused on organizing everything; he bought every organizational system, every organizing container, every filing system, and would mansplain to me how to organize.  Yet, he was an extreme hoarder, few of his possessions were organized; he took hours doing a simple load of laundry, couldn’t get to work on time, and couldn’t understand why the day got away from him. He had a shelf load of books on organizing, but never read them. He thought he was taking time to organize, but he wasn’t managing his time, so nothing got organized or managed.

What’s the difference between organizing time and managing time? According to Harold Taylor from Taylor In Time, “Organizing is the act of rearranging items that are in a disorganized, cluttered state so that everything can be retrieved quickly with less effort, maximizing both their utility and visual appeal.[Managing time] refers to increasing both the efficiency and the effectiveness of individuals and organizations through the organization of tasks and events by using tools such as planners and computers, and techniques and processes such as goal-setting, planning and scheduling. The two activities are interrelated since disorganization normally wastes time… organizing deals with things and [managing time] deals with activities that have a time dimension” (https://www.taylorintime.com/the-difference-between-organizing-and-time-management/).

Are you skilled in organizing your time and managing your time?  What obstacles get in the way of organizing and managing your time?  For me, the biggest obstacle is other people’s priorities that aren’t my priorities. I’m retired now, but when I taught at a local college, I was frustrated by the lack of excellent organizing and managing time skills of administration. Their priorities changed with the wind and required my priorities to respond to their chaos.  Oy!  On the other hand, when I was a Cast Member for Walt Disney World, my managers, leaders, front line supervisors, and all the way to the top with President and VPs were superb organizers and managers of time.  [Yes, that was the best job I’ve had.] The priorities of every Cast Member aligned with the mission and vision of WDW. At WDW, if any Cast Member wasn’t a great organizer and manager of time, they wouldn’t be around long.

If you’re not great at organizing and/or managing your time, there are some outstanding resources to help you. The best, in my opinion, is from Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice President of Operations at Walt Disney World.  His book, Time Management Magic is an easy read with lots of practical, real-life examples, tools, and suggestions.  [https://www.leecockerell.com/]  Lee was a tough, honest, inspiring mentor for me.

“If you don’t spend a lot of time planning [organizing] the life you want, you’ll spend a lot of time living the life you don’t want” (Lee Cockerell). “Learn to do the things you’re supposed to do [managing] and you’ll have time left over to do h things you want to do” (Lee Cockerell). Please share your stories, thoughts, insights, and suggestions by either commenting below this post if you are reading this on social media, or, if you are reading this through your email subscription, please share, by emailing me, at reimaginelife22@gmail.com.

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