In addition to having chronic conflicts with people you interact with, you can also have chronic conflicts with yourself. The next example is one such situation. We call it the classic dilemma of a college student.

Situation: Most college students go off to school and for the first time must plan, execute, and control their own daily lives. Some are successful; many are challenged; some fail miserably. Students have many demands for their time: classes, labs, studying, eating, sleeping, exercise, part-time or full-time jobs, and leisure activities such as playing sports with friends, attending college sporting events, college plays, movies, partying, playing cards, watching TV, etc. (the list is almost limitless). With so many choices, how does a student make the right decisions in allocating and using their time? The dilemma breaks down into doing the things I must do to succeed in college versus doing the things that I want to do to enjoy the college experience. Read Fig. 38-3 carefully.

Notice in the situation description, we provide the functions of planning, executing, and controlling. Another key function is prioritizing since, while in college, as in life, we never have enough time for all we have to do and want to do. Let's examine this life situation in more detail before getting into the direction of the solution.

EC of the Classic Dilemma of White-Collar Burnout

After college life and its dilemmas, careers take center stage. Many college graduates start their new business career with a bang by putting in 60 to 70 hours per week. Their initial and continued efforts are rewarded with raises and promotions but the stress, frustrations, and continued high pressure to perform force them to sacrifice their personal, family, social, and professional lives to gain security in an unsecure environment. Finally, one day they look back over their lives and in retrospect wonder where their lives have gone astray. They are worn out, insecure, and ready to get off the treadmill. This situation is known as "white-collar burnout." The situation is depicted in Fig. 38-4 as an EC along with our underlying assumptions for the causal relationships. The objective [A] of the young graduate is to have a satisfying life. The graduate feels that he must [B] achieve his life goals and simultaneously [C] meet the necessary conditions of his life. Both requirements (B and C) require that the graduate devotes time, motivation, concentration, effort, and energy to achieve the requirements. Of course, the dilemma then is that there is not enough time to devote time to everything. The underlying assumptions provide the logic. The burnout usually comes when the graduate recognizes the amount of time, energy, etc. devoted to work to the neglect of the other areas in his life. Let's examine each part of the cloud and this dilemma in more detail, but first let us review some basic TOC concepts and apply them to personal productivity. Once you have read the remainder of this chapter, you should revisit these clouds and assumptions to determine how you are poised to achieve a happy and satisfying life.

FIGURE 38-2 EC template and helpful hints.

FIGURE 38-3 EC and assumptions of the classic dilemma of a college student.

FIGURE 38-4 EC and assumptions of the white-collar burnout dilemma.

Personal Productivity-Establishing Goals, Strategies, Objectives, Action Plans, and Performance Measures

In Fig. 38-5, we present an overview of the facets of one's life, and how they relate to each other to improve our personal productivity. Our definition of personal productivity is moving towards achieving our life goals. Most individuals are in a firefighting mode, moving from one crisis to another in each facet of their life. To move out of the firefighting mode, you have to identify and use tools that allow you to focus on one or two tasks at a time that move you toward achieving your life goals in that facet. In some instances, you are in a chaotic environment where constant firefighting is the norm. In the TOC vernacular, this is the "What to Change" environment and the direction of "what to change to" provided by the TP helps the individual to determine what is important in your life. You must first find and use tools to move you to a stable environment. You must spend quiet time examining the five facets of your life: personal, family, friends/community, work, and professional. For each facet, a number of dimensions might exist; for example, in the personal facet, you might have goals (or necessary conditions) for physical, mental, and spiritual dimensions. You must decide what is important in each facet and dimension in the short and long term. However, a goal is only a dream unless you develop a plan and schedule for achieving it, then execute the schedule, and control interruptions to ensure task completion. The plan must provide the strategic direction for achieving the goal and supporting objectives and measurements that indicate your progress toward your goal. The plan must link from the strategic direction to the shorter term (tactical objectives) to the day-today activities that make up the operational plan. This operational plan (the "to-do" list) provides the mechanism: "How to Cause the Change?" Each day a "to-do" list of actions should include tasks that move you toward your supporting objectives in each facet of your life. These actions should provide progress toward weekly, monthly, yearly supporting objectives. Progress toward each supporting objective should be measurable and measured frequently to provide feedback. This feedback should be used to determine whether the supporting objective was achieved, whether the action was useful in moving toward the supporting objective, whether different actions are now required, etc. Each part of this diagram is discussed in detail next.

FIGURE 38-5 What to Change, What to Change to, and How to Cause the Change in personal productivity.

What are your goals in life? Most of you want to succeed in business or you would not be reading this handbook. Some of you may change your mind about a business career after reading this chapter. Some of you may change your mind after a few years in business. You will probably have 50 years in the job market! You have objectively determined you wanted a business career, or you just wandered into the business school not knowing where you wanted to go, or you graduated in another curriculum and ended up working in business. Maybe your Dad, Mom, or a brother or sister influenced you to select a business career. It may be the right decision or it may be the wrong decision for you.

Goal setting demands considerable time and concentration. You need to reflect on what you like to do. Do you like to interact with people? Do you like the sense of accomplishment derived from helping someone? Do you like to work with young kids? Do you like to solve computer problems? Do you want to go into the family business? Do you have a few or many friends? How involved are you in community activities? What do you want to do with your life? What are your goals?

Goal setting should take place in five different facets of your life-personal, family, friends/community, work, and professional. You need some direction, some goal, so you have an idea of where you are going in each and all dimensions of your life to be able to balance your time across these facets to achieve your goals. Most of you are responding to events in each of these facets each day. However, you should be seeking activities that move you toward your goal in each facet. What goals are you trying to accomplish in each facet? Dimensions of your personal goals include physical, mental, and spiritual. Dimensions of your family goals include your relationships with Mom, Dad, siblings, spouse, kids, and community. Dimensions of your work goals include current projects, pay, and work environment. Dimensions of your professional goals include higher degrees, certifications, and new skills development. Do not forget that you will be on the job market for 50 years and your current skills may be obsolete in a few years.

What is a goal versus a necessary condition in your life? A goal is generally viewed as something where more of the goal units are better. Making more money now and in the future means continually striving for improvement. A necessary condition means that some amount of an item is satisfactory to you, more is not necessary. A goal may be to get an A in this course, while a necessary condition may be that you must get at least a C in order to take the advanced courses. There is a big difference in the amount of time, effort, concentration, and motivation required to achieve an A versus a C.

A goal for one person may be a necessary condition for another. For one person, a goal may be to run less than 8-minute miles in a marathon, while for another person, a necessary condition is to walk briskly for an hour three times a week. Doing well in the marathon means a lower time is better. You may consider walking three times a week as the minimum amount (the necessary condition) for maintaining your physical fitness.

For one person, a work goal may be to find a job where you can make as much money as you can. On the other hand, for another person, a necessary condition might be to find a job where you make at least $40,000 annually, but work in the outdoors. More money may not be important to you-$40,000 is enough for you to live the lifestyle you want. One person's goal might be another person's necessary condition. You must recognize in each facet of your life what is a goal and what is a necessary condition. A goal may change into a necessary condition in the short-term and then change back. Suppose you have set a goal of losing 20 pounds over the next six months. You have lost 12 pounds thus far, but Christmas is approaching and you want to enjoy the holidays with family. You may decide to "maintain my weight" until after New Year's instead of forcing yourself to diet over the holidays. After New Year's you are back to the diet and trying to hit your target of 20 pounds. Knowing the differences between goals and necessary conditions (reduce frustration) are important, so that you know where to expend your focus, concentration, motivation, effort, and time.

In a work or school environment, recognizing the differences between goals and necessary conditions of people, and the differences in the actions of those people, is vital to understanding teamwork and reducing your frustration level. For example, you have probably worked on class projects as a team of three or four students. Sometimes you have a teammate who really works hard and sometimes you have a teammate who does not seem to care. The difference may be that one teammate views the project as the means of achieving the goal of an A in the course, while another views the project as a means of achieving the necessary condition of a C in the course. Their level of activity (time commitment, motivation, concentration, effort, and energy) supports their objective for the course. A good question to ask potential team members prior to forming the team is, "What grade are you going to work for on this project?"

One last point concerning goal setting is the understanding that goals in each facet of life can, and do, change. If you graduate from a school in business and after a couple years find that you dislike business and want to do something else, spend some time evaluating where you are and where you want to go. Have your interests changed? You have your whole life in front of you. Many workers today dislike their job or their work environment, but fail to recognize their ability to change. You should enjoy each facet of your life, and if you encounter obstacles, address them. Reassessing your goals and developing new goals in each facet of life is an important part of your continuous improvement process.

To manage your time effectively, you have to know where you are headed. That is, you should establish both long-term goals and supporting short-term objectives. You must be proactive in setting and achieving your goals. They provide you a direction for focusing your daily personal and professional efforts. Strategy tells you how you are going to accomplish your goals. In addition to these goals, you should set daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly objectives that move you toward achieving your long-term goals. You must develop a strategy and supporting action plans to achieve your goals and objectives. Your goals and objectives should be defined so that you can measure your progress toward achieving them. Measuring progress requires designing a performance measurement system that consists of performance criteria, performance standards, and performance measures. A performance criterion is a factor to be evaluated, a performance standard is the desired or acceptable level of performance, and a performance measure is the actual performance. The steps in establishing goals, objectives, and a measurement system are provided next.

1. Identify your long-term goal and its supporting shorter-term objectives.

2. Develop a strategy (how you are going to accomplish the goal and objectives) and supporting action plans to then accomplish these things.

3. Identify a performance criterion for evaluating your progress toward your short-term goals and objectives. (What am I going to measure?) 4. Identify short-term standards for your performance criterion that reflect meeting your objectives and a longer-term standard that reflects goal attainment.

5. Monitor your progress by measuring performance on your short-term objectives.

6. Compare your performance measures to your performance standards.

7. Take corrective action, if necessary.

Let's apply these steps to a specific situation where the student is a little more mature in approaching schoolwork than the typical undergraduate student described in the EC in Fig. 38-3. Suppose you work full time and are a full-time MBA student in a night program.5 Your professional goal is to [A] Graduate with honors from an MBA program while not sacrificing the other facets of your life. For your strategy (how to accomplish the goal), you decide to re-evaluate the time commitments made to various life facets where you can devote more time to MBA studies so that graduating with merit can be achieved. Examining the generic cloud in Fig. 38-3, the objective [A] remains the same, your [B] and [C] requirements are: [B] Achieve honors in the MBA program (an A-average across all courses) and [B] Satisfy the other facets of your life while completing the MBA program. This requirement encompasses work, family, friends, etc. Of course, the D-D dilemma is the same: You do not have enough time to do both simultaneously.

You have decided that the performance criterion for your MBA degree is the course grade. As you take exams and turn in projects in each course, you are able to chart your actual progress against your short-term standard for the course grade. Charting your performance measure (actual grades) against your performance standard (desired course grades) indicates your progress toward your long-term goal of graduating with merit. Are you on schedule, ahead of schedule, or behind schedule with your average grade? You might want to re-evaluate your course objectives for next term based on your results from this term.

When a deviation (difference between standard and actual grades) in grades occurs, identify the cause. How can you address the cause? Suppose that you were on a project team where the others did not contribute their share to the project. How might you address this situation in the future?

What to Change-How Do You Currently Use Your Time?

Most people recognize that they do not use their time effectively in accomplishing their goals. Many read self-improvement books on how to organize, how to improve memory, how to speed-read, etc. They try to improve everything instead of focusing on the core problem. Is time the problem with you?

It takes time to accomplish your short-term objectives and goals. Do you know how you use your time? Do you spend it freely or manage it? Are you reactive or proactive in managing your time? Do you plan your time or just let things happen? Once your time is planned, do you immediately abandon your plan once a disruption occurs? Do you ever accomplish your goals and objectives?

Prior to deciding on a plan for personal improvement, you should find out how you currently spend your time. What are the UDEs of poor time management? Set up a time analysis form and run enough copies to cover a week of recording your activities. A time analysis form is quite easy to construct in a spreadsheet. At the top of this form, write your objectives for the day (a simple "to-do" list). Some of these daily activities should support your short-term objectives. If you do not currently plan your day, leave the objectives section blank. Most people do not use "to-do" lists. In the first column, enter the time you usually get up (6:00; 6:30; 7:00; etc.) and 30-minute intervals to when you usually go to bed. In the second column, enter the activity that you are performing during that 30-minute interval. Attempt to record how you spend your time every half hour or less. If you wait to record your activities until the end of the day, you lose your perspective of the amount of time taken by various activities and you fail to record major interruptions. The third column, the comment column, allows you to provide additional insight into the activity, interruptions, and problems. The fourth or rank column is to assist you in evaluating whether the activity was important (I), unimportant (U), or had no relationship (N/A) to your daily objectives or a necessary condition (NC).

After 7 days of recording daily objectives, activities, comments, and importance ranks, conduct this analysis.

1. Study your daily objectives. Are they realistic (can they be accomplished in one day) and measurable (can I tell when I am finished)? "To scan and read Chapter 3 of my history book" is a realistic and measurable objective. In contrast, "to study history" is a vague and immeasurable objective.

2. Rank your activities each day. Which activities were important to accomplishing your short-term objectives, unimportant to accomplishing your objectives, not applicable, but still important or a necessary condition activity? How much time fell into each of these categories?

3. Identify all activities that are travel, work, school, sleep, eating, and leisure. What percentage and how many hours each day were time wasters, as related to your daily objectives and longer-term goals?

4. Identify how you might eliminate or reduce these time-wasting activities.

5. Identify activities that you can control as well as those you cannot control but have to perform (necessary conditions).

6. Classify and study the interruptions that occur each day. Why did they occur?

7. List UDEs related to your ability to manage your time.

8. Analyze these UDEs to determine their causes.

9. Take steps to eliminate the underlying cause of these time wasters.

10. Complete this exercise every six months.

It should be noted that while this exercise might seem tedious, it takes very little time to do. At the same time it adds enormous value to your understanding and ability to plan effectively for one of your most valuable assets-your time.

Developing a Detailed Implementation Plan to Accomplish Your Goals and Objectives

Time management is a skill that can benefit you throughout your professional and personal life. It provides you the opportunity to maintain a balance among your competing activities (personal, family, friends/community, work, and professional). Achieving your short- and long-term goals means developing a detailed implementation plan and being proactive in attacking your action plan. This action plan should be specific with respect to what, where, when, and how.

The first critical question, "What?" can be used in two ways to determine the significance of the relationship of an action to achieving your objective. First, what is the action that allows you to achieve your objective? This question allows you to identify what action should appear in your "to-do" list. These significant actions must be accomplished to complete your daily objectives. Second, each action in your "to-do" list and actions you actually take during the day should be analyzed to determine what purpose they are serving. You should ask yourself, "How does this action help me accomplish my daily objectives?" If you are altering your daily plans, you should be aware of the sacrifice you are making. Is the new action that you are taking something that moves you toward today's objectives? Is it worthy of taking your time from what you planned to do today? In many situations, you do not question interruptions to your plan.6 You accept them then and later reflect back on the waste of your time. Avoid interruptions and certainly question them. You might need to develop another strategy to accomplish your objectives. If you have many interruptions in studying, you might search for another strategy (of when and where) for studying.

The most effective way to control interruptions is to remove yourself from environments that permit them. It is responding to the second question, "Where?" Find yourself a quiet place to concentrate and get through your work with focused attention. You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish in a short period of time when you are able to devote 100 percent of your attention to one task at a time. The correct answer to the question of "Where?" can save time and effort.

To be successful at time management, the third question of "When?" must be answered repeatedly. The simplest way to improve your use of time is to use some type of daily planner (electronic or paper) to provide hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly calendars for recording your plans. At the beginning of each term, enter your important work and school activities, such as (for work) projects, reports, and meetings, and (for school) tests, term papers, projects, football games, and parties on the monthly, weekly, and daily planning portions of the planner. Add your doctor, dentist, hairdresser, and club meeting appointments to your planner. The monthly and weekly overviews provide you an indication of what is coming up and times of peaks and valleys in your current workload. One approach many students have found useful in time management is to change their daily routine. Go to bed early on weekdays and get up early to study or exercise. You are fresh and alert and have few interruptions. Similarly, many white-collar professionals get to work before others so they have quiet time to get important tasks finished without interruptions.

The fourth question is, "How?" How are you going to accomplish your daily objectives? For example, how do you work or study best? For a project, do you first lay out all the tasks yourself or get the project team together and draft a project plan? In studying, for example, do you first skim a chapter; second, read it; third, go back and underline important items; and forth, review your underlined items? In an examination of used textbooks at a college bookstore, more than half (in some cases almost all) of the text within each chapter was highlighted. This suggests that most students skip the skim activity, and read and underline simultaneously. This undesirable approach was verified by taking a student poll in a number of college classes.

Operations Planning and Control Functions

Once you have determined your daily activities, You must focus on completing them. Focus translates into performing four interrelated functions which are required to plan and control your activities. These functions are priority planning, priority control, capacity planning, and capacity control. They are defined as: 1. Priority planning: The process of determining the sequence of activities based on their relative importance. What should be performed first, second, third? What should be set aside for another time? What should not be performed (errors of commission)?

2. Capacity planning: The process of determining the time and resources required to perform a task (capacity required) and comparing them to your available time (capacity available). In this planning, avoid multitasking; focus on one task at a time. Unless wait time is involved in an activity, focusing on one activity at a time usually reduces the time involved and improves the quality of the activity.

3. Priority control: The process of executing the priority plan and making changes to the sequence based on current needs and conditions. Interruptions happen; try to reduce the possibility of them occurring. Sometimes an interruption is important and you have to reprioritize your activities. Try to finish what you are doing before starting the new activity.

4. Capacity control: The process of comparing your actual time and resources to perform a task to the capacity plan and making capacity adjustments to your work schedule based on your actual progress. Most people underestimate the time required for an activity and then suffer the consequences. Track the accuracy of your time estimates so you can learn to estimate activity times better.

While these terms may seem foreign to you at first, you intuitively perform these functions throughout your daily activities. For example, you are planning your day and you want to drop off some clothes at the dry cleaner across town after work, which ends at 5 PM. The cleaner closes at 6 PM. You have a 6:30 appointment for dinner with a friend. You compare your priorities and timing of the activities-priority planning. You estimate that you have one hour to get across town to the cleaners, and the round trip drive is 40 minutes-capacity planning. It is 5 PM, but instead of heading to the dry cleaners as planned, you are delayed because your boss asks for your help with a problem. You weigh the situation of heading to the cleaners versus helping your boss-priority control. You spend 40 minutes helping your boss and realize you cannot get to the cleaners before it closes. You mentally reschedule the cleaners for tomorrow-capacity control.

To be an effective manager, you must plan and execute these four functions with discipline. Some individuals are very good at performing these functions naturally; others are miserable. Most find planning and controlling their time a real problem, but do not seem to recognize the problem until it is too late. The key to effective time management is focus.

Steps to Improve Your Productivity

Formalizing the process of applying these four functions to your projects and daily activities helps improve your productivity. Follow the eight steps here.

1. Verbalize your objectives, supporting strategy, and performance measures.

2. List the activities that you must perform to attain your objective.

3. Prioritize the activities based on causal dependencies, start times, urgency, importance, ease of completion, distastefulness, efficiency, or some other basis. Always do activities that move you closer to your goals in each facet/dimension of your life.

4. Estimate the resources (time, materials, and equipment) required.

5. Compare the resources required to the resources available.

6. Develop a simple plan for accomplishing your activities. Ensure that resources are available when needed.

7. Focus on the activity at hand. Find a quiet place and time to perform critical tasks. Do it and move on to the next item on your "to-do" list.

Do not multitask on important tasks. Eliminate distractions. Try to buffer yourself against time wasters.

8. As activities are accomplished, delayed, changed, or eliminated, adjust your list accordingly.

Now, each step will be discussed in more detail.

1. Verbalize your objectives, supporting strategy, and performance measures.

With your goals in mind, you must decide on your objectives, strategy, and how to measure your progress in attaining these objectives prior to defining how you will accomplish your objectives. This can be as simple as writing one sentence.

2. List the activities and projects (based on your strategy) you must perform to attain your objective.

QUESTION: How do you eat an elephant?