It has become increasingly obvious that in recent years, possibly due to the Asian financial crisis and possibly due to employees' concerns about job security, working hours appear to be getting longer and longer. Many companies have reduced their number of employees, and for those who kept their jobs, the work load has increased. This, unfortunately, has led to some rather unhealthy work practices.

Recently in a meeting with managers from different organizations, we started to talk about time use practices in orga-nizations. One manager shared that in their organization, it is not unusual for people to work until 11 p.m. Someone else said that, in their company, people stay late because their boss stays late and they dare not go home until the boss has left. Yet another person told us that they were "told" that they must work late -- at least two nights per week.

Employees that work late are not necessarily more productive. In fact, quite often they achieve less than those who complete their work during regular work hours. In some cases, senior management establishes an organizational culture that encourages employees to waste productive work hours that can never be replaced even by excessive overtime. Senior managers, especially Human Resources Directors, must speak out and create a work culture that encourages the productive use of time.

Time is a resource. As a resource, it is often overlooked and mismanaged, but it is still one of the most valuable resources we have at our disposal. Usually, when we think of resources we think about tangible items like plants, machinery, equipment, materials, fixtures and furniture; money and assets that can be converted into cash; people and their knowledge, skills and abilities; and information that can be used to the advantage of organisations and ourselves.

More and more we are coming to realise that time is the most valuable resource of all. How we use it can mean the difference between success and mediocrity, satisfaction or unease and growth or stagnation. The paradox of time is that, while we have all the time there is, we say that we never have enough. When we say that, we are admitting that what we are doing is not a real priority to us. So time management, and the control of time, are the same as priority management and priority control. We will never manage our time effectively until we learn to say yes to some activities, and no to others.

Our behaviour is a reflection of our attitude and values. Our attitude towards time will give us important clues to the reasons behind our use and misuse of it. Significant changes will only come about when we develop new attitudes and values about time as a resource, and the impact it has on our lives, relationships and careers.

One of the reasons that we find the management of time so frustrating is because it means that we need to manage ourselves more effectively. It is often easier to manage other people than it is to manage ourselves. In order to be more effective at time management we must want to change, we must want to alter our behaviour. All the courses, books and notes in the world will not make any difference unless we ourselves have the desire to alter our priorities.

Take a look at your own time horizon, and see if you can focus on elements in your own life and career that you want to change and improve. Think in terms of the following:

• Knowledge and Understanding: What would you like to know more about and understand better?
• Skills and Behaviour: What would you like to be able to do more effectively?
• Relationships and Situations: What would you like to improve? With whom? What would you like to do differently?
• Tasks and Projects: What would you like to undertake? What would you like to do more swiftly? What would you like to complete?
• Responsibilities: What would you like more of? What would you like to shift to another department or to someone else?
• Hobbies and Leisure: What new activity would you like to learn more about? Or do more frequently? Or begin?

Time is an important asset. Because we do not usually think of it that way, we end up wasting a lot of it. So we must practice the self-discipline that is necessary: Determine our priority objectives, work out how to achieve them, control our time so that it is devoted to the "key areas for concentration."

These key areas are the few critical tasks, items and elements in any job that will produce most of the results we want. Remember these four key words:

OBJECTIVES: What do you wish to accomplish, when, and why?

PRIORITIES: From your activities, which are the most important to your objectives? What are your priority activities and your priority objectives?

KEY AREAS FOR CONCENTRATION: What are the few areas that will contribute most to what you want to achieve? Where should you focus attention and energy?

DISCIPLINE: You must continually focus on those aspects of job, career, and life that will truly make a difference.

Time is the raw material of life. The passing of each day brings us the opportunities to evolve into something better than we were at the start of the day. Our personal success, or lack of it, is largely contingent upon the effective use of our time.

We ALL have the same amount!

Time is immensely valuable and utterly irretrievable. Without a doubt it is the most valuable commodity we have. No one has more or less time than you and I. Each of us is given the same 1440 minutes per day and the 168 hours per week. This is true whether it be the paperboy or the president, the author or the home-maker, the farmer or the preacher. The clocks we buy run at the same speed.

We ALL waste time!

Yet, in spite of its preciousness and vast potentialities, there is nothing we squander quite so thoughtlessly as time. As the wise Sir Walter Scott has said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of." Time is a many-faceted, paradoxical, ever-changing/never-changing phenomenon. For all of us, time is in short supply and high demand. There never seems to be enough of it. The only variable available to us is the use that we make of our finite supply of time. It is important that we budget the time we have just as carefully as we budget the money we have to spend.

Time can be our tool; we need not be its slave!

Peter Drucker has written, "Time Management takes perseverance and self-discipline, but no other investment pays higher dividends." Time is only saved by human discipline. The entire science of management deals with the way executives allocate their time. We so often hear, "I wish I knew how to manage my time better." Rarely do we hear, "I wish I knew how to manage myself better." For better time utilization we must learn to manage ourselves. Our mental attitude in the use of time is most important. If we don't want to do something, we can find a thousand reasons for not doing it. It may be too far or too hot or too cold or too wet or too dry. But, if we want to do something, nothing will stop us -- obstacles are brushed aside as if they were nothing. Rather than ask the question, "Where has the time gone?", it is better to ask, "How could I have planned so poorly and left so much to be done in so little time?"

We all waste a certain amount of time -- even the most productive among us. The trick is to keep it to a minimum. Keep remembering that you want to make life simple. We too seldom take the time to look at what is stealing our precious time. At work, there are dozens of potential timewasters, from chatting with favorite subordinate managers, to doing unnecessarily detailed work, to not getting the instructions clear in the first place and having to give them again. Start thinking about your favorite tricks to waste time.

In general, the real secrets to feeling as though you have accomplished something important at the end of a working day are virtues that many people think are out-of-date these days. They are "working hard" and "working effectively." These virtues require two commitments on your part: make every minute count, and discipline yourself to get rid of the timewasters in your life.