Take a bunch of people and put them together in a room then classify them into two groups based on whether or not they are good time managers. Describe the finite resources principle to them then ask them who strongly believes in it and who doubts its validity. Surprisingly, you will find that all members of the group of good time managers are strong believers in the principle of finite resources while all members of the poor time managers group either doubt such principle or disregard it altogether.
The Finite Resources Principle
The principle of finite resources states that the resources under the disposal of any given person no matter how great they are do have a limit to them that is they are finite. Resources can be money, time, human effort … etc.
Those who are blessed with fine time management skills do believe in such principle. As a result of this, they tend to try to make the best out of the resources available to them because they know that such resources are finite and have a limit to them.
Resources are Insufficient
What if the resources available are not sufficient to accomplish all the required goals? This is usually the case in real life situations for if the resources were more than enough to accomplish the goals then there will be no need to manage the resources in an optimal way nor to use sound time management practices. Moreover, if the resources available are more than enough to accomplish the required goals then why not list some more goals and aim at achieving them? Finally, even if the resources available appear to be more than enough to accomplish the required goals, inefficient management of such resources may still lead to the inability the achieve all the required goals.
From the above we conclude that in practice resources available are usually not sufficient to accomplish all required goals. The solution? An experience time manager would thus resort to the golden rule of all time management principles: prioritize.
Poor Time Managers
Someone with poor time management skills would either be completely unaware of the prioritization principle and its value or would never actually use it in practice to manage his or her time. In the common real life situation where resources are insufficient to accomplish all required goals, a poor time manager will not attempt to prioritize or use resource more efficiently, instead he or she will try to squire all the requested tasks in the limited time resource available and may even keep hungrily asking for more and more resources which unfortunately is a common time mismanagement technique.
Sound Time Management
We have seen how poor time managers go about trying to do it all with often disastrous results at the end and a hectic environment. How would good time managers respond to the situation then? We have mentioned that experienced time managers would manage their resources using the golden rule of time management which is to prioritize. But on what basis are they going to prioritize the requirements and which tasks would have higher priority in receiving the available resources?
The basis upon which prioritization of tasks will be done is based on a well known law in mechanics. Mechanics classifies levers into more than one type. Second class 2 levers are said to be efficient levers. In a type two lever the effort exerted is little while the outcome is great. In the same spirit, a good time manager will tend to place his or her resources where they can have the greatest impact on the overall all outcome.
Conclusion
The difference between a pro time manager and a poor time manager is in the degree of belief they have for the principle of finite resources. Whereas a poor time manager will tend to accomplish all listed tasks regardless of their importance and try to squeeze everything in the limited time unavailable or constantly request more and more time, an experienced time manager would instead prioritize the required goals according to their importance and calmly divide the available resources on the tasks using the second class lever rule, that is distribute your resources where they will give you the highest outcome for the smallest input.