Realty Times August 28, 2003

Time Tips: Time Management Facts
by Dr. Don Wetmore

Here are some interesting time management facts:

  • The average person spends less than 2 minutes per day in meaningful communication with their spouse or "significant other" and less than 30 seconds a day in meaningful communication with their children.

  • Eighty percent of employees do not want to go to work on Monday morning.

  • The average person uses 13 different methods to control and manage their time.

  • In the last 20 years, working time has increased by 15 percent and leisure time has decreased by 33 percent.

  • Sixty percent of meeting attendees takes notes to appear as if they are listening.

  • Eighty percent of "Crisis Management" is preventable.

  • The average worker sends and receives 190 messages per day.

  • The average person makes over 5,000 decisions in a typical day.

    The 20/80 Rule

    If you keep a log of your interruptions, you will find evidence of the 20/80 rule at work. The 20/80 rule is formally known as the Pareto Principle.

    Pareto was an Italian economist who discovered that about 20 percent of the companies in an economy would be responsible for generating 80 percent of the then Gross National Product and the remaining 80 percent of the companies in the same economy would generate the other 20 percent of the then Gross National Product.

    This is not about macro economics. This is about time management because the 20/80 rule has a lot of application in our daily lives.

    Did you ever notice, if you belong to a church or a civic organization, how 20 percent of the members are there 80 percent of the time, doing 80 percent of the work and the remaining 80 percent of the members are there 20 percent of the time? How 20 percent of your relatives give you 80 percent of your headaches? How 20 percent of a typical sales force will produce 80 percent of the sales and 80 percent of the sales force will produce 20 percent of the sales?

    Focus your time on the 20 percent of the activities that will produce 80 percent of your results.


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