Spirituality/Personal Growth

The Time Management Workbook, a companion to Time Management: A Catholic Approach, provides directions and space to help organize your life according to your values. Included are practical exercises in:

• Taking inventory of activities;• Listening for the still, small voice of God, over that of

demanding time bandits;• Examining the amount of time spent on technology;• Planning for breaks and waits;• Re-thinking your way of living Sunday, the Lord’s Day.

All with reference to Scripture and with the awareness that time, which is to say life, is a gift from God.

Also available:

Time Management: A Catholic Approach by Marshall J. Cook

0-8198-7429-9

A practical guide that begins with the notion that God has given us exactly as much time as we need, so time management becomes a way of seeking a balanced, healthy Christian life.

“Marshall Cook presents a spiritual yet practical approach to the everyday challenges of time management. A must-read for all of us struggling to balance our busy, complicated, and often challenged lives.”

— Arthur BowesSenior Vice President of Human Resources, North Shore Medical Center, Salem, MA,

Management Professor, University of Massachusetts/Boston

$10.95 U.S.

Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part 1

Can We Really “Manage”Time

Chapter 1

God’s Time and Our Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Chapter 2

Recovering from Speed Sickness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 3

Do You Really Need to “Manage” Time? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Part 2

How to Control Chronos Time

Chapter 4

10 Truths, 10 Tips, and the Fundamental Law of Time Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Chapter 5

Moment Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 6

Eliminating Time Wasters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

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Chapter 7

To Do or Not to Do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter 8

Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Chapter 9

Managing the Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 10

Managing Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Chapter 11

The Power of the Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter 12

Managing Other People’s Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Chapter 13

Clutter Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter 14

Honoring Thy Bodily Rhythms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 15

Making Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Part 3

Keeping the Sabbath Holy

Chapter 16

The Holy Day of Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Conclusion

Living on God’s Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

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Chapter 5

Moment Management

It’s time to reclaim daily decisions you may be making by rote—without even realizing you have choices.Take your time with this;

it’s best if you spread it out over several days.

Day of DecisionEvery time you’re in an either/or situation, you have to make a

choice. If you could have done something else or done it in a differ-ent way, you decided to do what you did in the way that you did it.How many of these decisions do you make each day? Twenty-five?Fifty? Maybe even 100?

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What if you count the relatively trivial decisions, such as:Either: I leave for work right now (and leave myself a nice cush-

ion to be sure I get there on time without having to rush).Or: I have another cup of coffee and finish reading the paper (and

then have to catch a tailwind and make all the traffic lights to get towork on time).

You might make two hundred or three hundred such decisionsevery day.

Let’s find out. Select a typical day (as much as any day can trulybe “typical” or “average”).Take a time-out at noon and write downall the decisions you remember making since you got up that morn-ing. Include as many as you can. Remember, if you could have donesomething else or done it differently, it’s a decision. Do the samething after dinner, listing all your decisions since noon.

The Morning’s Decisions

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The Afternoon’s Decisions

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Set your list aside until the next day.When you review your list, are you surprised by the number and

types of decisions you remember making? How many of themdidn’t feel like decisions at all but were simply what you’ve alwaysdone?

If you want to make this tougher but more inclusive, take a note-book with you wherever you go for a day and write down yourdecisions as you make them (perhaps every thirty minutes, as youdid with your activity log).This can get awfully annoying, and youmay find yourself becoming self-conscious about your actions.Youmight even alter the way you act. Remember, it’s just for a day, andthe data you collect could help you make time management deci-sions later.

The still, small voiceYour life may resemble a carnival at times, with barkers shout-

ing at you from both sides. You’ve got “barkers” on the broadcastmedia, e-mail, and phone solicitations who make incessant demandson your time and money. If you’re taking care of children, they neednearly constant attention and vigilance.

Your children need and deserve that attention. The carnivalbarkers don’t.

Create a list of people who regularly demand your attention butdon’t merit it. It’s your list, and nobody else ever has to see it, sofeel free to include your brother-in-law, a neighbor, a coworker—anyone who qualifies. Let’s call these folks your:

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Time Bandits

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You’ve no doubt developed strategies for fending off some ofthese assaults on your time and sanity.

Now think about people who deserve your attention but aren’tgetting it.These may be the silent ones. For example:

�� The friend who never initiates a phone call (too shy,perhaps, or hates the telephone) but who wants and needs to talk to you.

�� The student who sits with hands folded on her desk, never gives you any trouble, and seems to understand the lesson.

�� The colleague who has been unusually quiet and withdrawn lately.

�� The silent young man holding the plastic cup on the street corner who may need a kind word or even just a nod more than any spare change you might give him

Do you have people like that in your life? Maybe you haveenough of them to warrant making a list.

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The Quiet Ones

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Their silence might represent the still, small voice of God inyour life, offering an opportunity to love and serve, even calling youinto relationship. Do you have time for these quiet ones? Shouldmaking time for some of them become one of your time-manage-ment priorities?

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