Are the 11 Fundamentals (or Components) in 2Time the right ones?
It’s hard to say, and the truth is that I am not sure. After all, it’s quite likely that an astute reader will look at my list of 11 Fundamentals and suggest that I either add a new one in or remove one or two, and that they’ll make more sense than I have made up until now.
All I think I have to do is to make sure that I stick to the criteria I used to determine whether or not a particular practice should be thought of as a Fundamental or not.
The criteria I used is as follows: must every professional include the fundamental in their daily time management, and is it unavoidable?
It seems to me that once a time demand is understood as an essential “atom” of productivity, then this “atom” that must be included in every time management system that exists, regardless of the knowledge and awareness of the user.
The underlying assumption behind this thinking is that all time management systems are designed to process “time demands.” One sign of success of such a system is that time demands don’t fall through the cracks. In other words, the system does what it is intended to do.
Another assumption is that every user has a commitment to fulfill time demands, and another is that they try to do so in a world limited by distance, form and time.
If any readers of this blog can see other time demands, I am willing to consider them, given the definition I have created above.
This is not just some theoretical conversation. Professionals all over the world are flying blind at the moment, unable to design time management system for themselves that work, simply because they have no grasp of these fundamentals. The cost in man-hours, peace of mind and dollars is no small matter.