I am rereading Stephen Covey’s First Things First. This is one of the blurbs in the front matter of the book:
“I hate time management systems. Do lists, day planners, and breathing-by-objective systems give me the hives.
But I love First Things First — Covey and the Merrills’ approach to making your life meaningful and successful on purpose. The subtitle tells it all, ‘To Live, to Love, to Learn, to Leave a Legacy.’ That’s making your life work instead of making work your life. Super!”
— Ron Zemke, coauthor of Service America and Sustaining Knock Your Socks Off Service
I agree and disagree with Mr. Zemke. I agree in that I too love First Things First, and reading it again has been a sort of homecoming for me. I disagree (slightly) in that I’ve never hated time management systems, I’ve been captivated by them.
Much as I like to explain that ‘time management’ is a kind of misnomer, I’ve always been fascinated with the organization and systems part of the concept, and I’ve sunk a small fortune (and BIG amounts of time) into playing and experimenting with every planner to catch my fancy. Paper, digital, cosmically star-aligned ” you name it: I’ve probably tried it or at least checked it out enough to consider myself an unofficial, self-proclaimed expert on them (whatever ‘expert’ means.)
The reason my fascinated continued? I’m still looking for one that works.