The Skinny on Time Management

by Jim Randel

The Skinny on Time Management summarizes for you the thinking of those who have spent years contemplating time and time management. This book will tell you exactly what you need to know to find the time to accomplish your goals. This book addresses not only techniques for creating additional time but also strategies for making more impactful and effective use of the time you have. Those people who master the techniques and strategies presented in this book are well on their way to the success they aspire to. In The Skinny on Time Management, you will learn how beat back the impulse to procrastinate- create a goals-step-time analysis- focus, focus, focus- make the most of gaps- improve your memory and speed-reading- make your use of time powerful and impactful- multi-task- create a time journal- prioritize- triumph over distractions- batch for effectiveness.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help

Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Jim Randel, a graduate of the Columbia University College and Law School, has made his living as an entrepreneur. During his 30-year career, Jim has been the lead investor in many real estate and business deals. He has been a guest speaker at Harvard and NYU Business Schools, annual conventions for national organizations, and investor sessions in every large city in the United States. He has also appeared on numerous networks as an expert on investing. Recent engagements include ABC, CBS, Fox, Fox Business and BetterTV.com.

Throughout his career, Jim's passion has been to teach and write. His first book, The Real Estate Game (CCH), was published in 1986 and received national recognition from investors and critics. From 1988 to 1990 he was a daily commentator on the Financial News Network (now CNBC). In 2006 he wrote Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur (McGraw-Hill) which reached #1 in several Amazon categories.

In 2008 Jim founded Rand Media Co, which, under the imprint The Skinny On™, publishes a revolutionary line of illustrated non-fiction books.

The first book in this series, The Skinny on the Housing Crisis, was awarded First Prize in the prestigious Robert Bruss Real Estate Book competition sponsored by NAREE, a group of 600 journalists who cover business and finance. This was quickly followed by 8 more titles: The Skinny on Willpower, The Skinny on Credit Cards, The Skinny on Success, The Skinny on Real Estate Investing, The Skinny on Direct Sales (also available in Spanish as The Skinny on Venta Directa), The Skinny on Time Management, The Skinny on the Art of Persuasion, and the newest in the series, The Skinny on Networking.

Jim lives and works in Westport, Connecticut with his wife Carol. They have four grown children and two grandchildren.

For more information about the Skinny on series, go to: www.TheSkinnyOn.com.

Reviews

[Teerasak · Rating 5 out of 5]

ผมอ่านฉบับแปลไทย อ่านง่ายมากๆ วันเดียวจบ อาจจะเพราะเรามักอ่านหนังสือพวก Time Management มาบ้างแล้ว เล่มนี้พิเศษคือการใช้ตัวหนังสือไม่มาก มีรูปประกอบแบบง่ายๆในโครงสร้างตัวคนเเบบก้างปลา หนังสือบางพกพาสะดวก

[Bernie Weisz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review Written By Bernie Weisz Historian Contact: BernWei1@aol.com June 20, 2010 Pembroke Pines, Florida
Title of review: Time Management=24 60 minute "gifts" a day, 168 hours a week to make life happen for you instead of to you!, Have you ever had a day off from work and planned to accomplish an agenda, only to go back to your job the next day dissatisfied that little or none of what you planned occurred? Ever go on a vacation only to just waste your time away and do nothing? Ever pick up a book and plan to read it in a few days, and find it on your nightstand a few weeks later virtually untouched? Even worse, are you guilty of the haphazard job search, the wasted time staring at the television, Internet or gabbing on the telephone gossiping about inconsequential, unimportant gossip? Do you remember 10 years ago? How fast did those times go until now? Don't you wish you had that time back to do whatever you dreamed? The unattained degree, the wrong soul mate, the bad job fit, the empty savings account-all occurring as a result of making poor conscious choices between satisfaction and sacrifice. And the dreadful result of not making the correct choices: allowing other forces to dictate how your life plays out. If you have answered "yes" to any of the past questions or scenarios then attorney Jim Randel's "The Skinny On Time Management" will really make you stop and think what you are doing with your time and life, e.g. your past, present and future.

What is time management? Well, let's briefly talk about what it is not. Individuals that cannot properly manage their time may be unable to sit still, plan ahead, finish tasks, or be fully aware of what's going on around them. To themselves, their family, classmates and others they may seem to exist in a whirly-gig of disorganized or frenzied activity. Some mental health professionals contend that the symptoms of "Attention Deficit Disorder" are behaviors such as often fidgeting with hands or feet, or squirming while seated, having difficulty remaining seated, awaiting one's turn in games or group activities, blurting out answers before questions are completed, and having difficulty in following instructions. Even further, an individual with this affliction has difficulty sustaining attention in completing tasks or play activities, shifting from one to another. They experience difficulty playing quietly, talk excessively, and interrupt or intrude on others, often not listening to what is being said. However, just because an individual forgets things necessary for tasks or activities, and is easily distracted by extraneous stimuli, it is not definitive that they have this disorder. After reading Mr. Randel's book, it is possible to come to the conclusion that the aforementioned symptoms of ADD could be confused with a person that simply does not have effective time management skills. Avoided are the unnecessary, stigmatizing and embarrassing labels of a non existent condition that could very well be a self fulfilling prophesy. Jim Randel asserts that thoughts are "things" just like any other tangible item and can be kicked out of one's own mind, just like a misbehaving cat would be tossed out of a house.
If you have been diagnosed with ADD, before you throw your "Ritalin" or "Concerta" out and cancel your next appointment with a therapist, you might want to read Mr. Randel's book. Conversely, if you feel like bad time management has resulted in you not making anything with your life and you view with woeful regret your past because of all the countless missed opportunities you did not capitalize on, then this book is also for you. As concisely as possible, Jim Randel shows the reader how procrastination is the enemy, detailing effective steps how to make choices about your time and set goals. Randel argues that by intelligently prioritizing one's time, you will increase the probability that your life will proceed on your agenda, not someone else's, or worse, by fate. A consequence of not making good choices, particularly between sacrifice and satisfaction, allows "other forces" to dictate how the bad time manager's life will play out. Psychoanalytically speaking, and apologetically addressing all adherents to the field of "Behaviorism", the successful time manager is one who effectively knows how to effectively use his "ego" to balance his "id" and "superego". Yes, that's right. We are today a product of yesterday's choices. The only way we can change the future is by acquiring and mastering strong time management skills.

Time management is the art of arranging, organizing, scheduling, and budgeting one's time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity. It has become crucial in recent years thanks to the 24/7, busy world in which we live. Time management is important for everyone. While time management books and seminars often place their focus on business leaders and corporations, time management is also crucial for students, teachers, factory workers, professionals, and home makers. It is critical for the individual who owns his or her own business or who runs a home based business if it is to economically survive. Another integral part of time management Randel stresses is planning ahead. Sometimes, successful time management involves putting in more time at the outset in order to reorganize one's life, as well as the delay of gratification. Randel quotes Tony Robbin's suggestion of: "The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you." Aside from sublimation, another step in efficient time management is to organize the workspace or home. If one's office and filing system are a disaster, time will be wasted trying to work efficiently in a disorderly place, with distractions foiling one's time management. After cleaning, purging, and reorganizing the home or office, the next step in time management is planning. Careful attention must be given to look at all activities one participates in during a week. Possibly going overboard, Randel insists that every last detail should be written down, including the time it takes to shower, dress, commute, attend meetings, make phone calls, clean the house, cook dinner, pick up the children from school, eat meals, etc. However, Randel is not a sadist. Important to the successful time manager is an allowance for entertainment or exercise, such as driving to the gym, going for a walk, watching television, or surfing the Internet.

In addition, Jim Randel shows the layman to time management that after one writes down every last activity, there is very little time left for sleeping. Consequently, the end result is that many activities and behaviors must be pared down, eliminated, consolidated, or delegated. Critical to avoiding a time manager's worst enemy, e.g. procrastination, one must prioritize activities on a scale of descending importance. Deeming tasks and activities that have the highest importance must be acted on first. Another hallmark of time management is to have a calendar or daily planner, which will help one to stay on task. However, sublimation and self-discipline are critical. Regardless of the best "to-do list" in the world, someone without the aforementioned traits will not be able to look at or follow his own daily planner. Jim Randel's book differs from all others currently on the market. He firmly believes that most 400 page self-help and education books of what he calls loquacious "drivel" could have been done better in 50 pages. Angrily focusing on what he calls "pointlessly long words and ridiculously complex sentences", Randel commiserates as to why college students sleep until noon. Boldly stating the issue with most college texts, Randel asserts: "It isn't the sex, drugs and rock and roll. No way! They have to read this garbage every day! Personally, I'd rather read the phone book". When one first picks up this book, you would think this is a child's book, with Randal's bright idea of using stick figure drawings and an entertaining comic book layout. Without confusing format with content, the author presents easy to understand analogies that rapidly communicate important information on the intricacies of time management.

Meant to be read in one hour, this easy to understand book is the product of over 100 books and articles on time management. With the bibliography listing the most valuable on the subject, Jim Randel is quick to mention the redundancy of them all. In regards to time management, all of the information culled in the aforementioned books points to the fact that there are really only 50 principles important to the student of this subject. Once those are mastered, you will have learned all you need to know about this. The bottom line of this publication is the belief that every hour of one's own life must be used in an intelligent manner. Every student of time management must use their energy as effectively as possible by considering in advance where, when and how one wishes to take action. Stressed is the cliche "every hour of planning is worth 5 in execution." Randel insists that since there are activities that have more reward than others, the majority of one's energies should be towards those that give you the "biggest bang for your buck." Twenty percent of your actions produce 80% of your results. Randel tries to show the reader how to identify which of your actions and efforts are the critical 20%. Have you ever heard the expression "work smart, not hard?" Obviously, time is an invaluable opportunity to make something great happen and to change your life. Ultimately, time management is about making correct, beneficial choices that will help you achieve your goals. This book will give you the strategies to do this. If the thoughts and actions outlined in the beginning of this review applies to you, this book is indispensable!

[Eugene Tan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy read, if one is interested to identify the related principles of time management.

As this is the “skinny” book, further reading is recommended for in-depth understanding of the relevant principles and approaches mentioned in the book.

Refer to the “Further Reading” section for more suggested readings.

[Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

very skinny

[Woranart · Rating 3 out of 5]

เป็นหนังสือที่ยำเรื่องนู้น เรื่องนี้ มาจากหนังสือด้านการบริหารเวลาหลายๆ เล่ม แล้วสรุปออกมาเป็นเล่มเล็ก
มีเนื้อหาที่นำไปใช้ประโยชน์ได้ แต่ไม่อิน เพราะขาดบริบทแวดล้อม

[Xin Li · Rating 3 out of 5]

没有多少意义

[jie shi · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book takes about 15min to go over, pretty skinny

[Todd Fonseca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Skinny On: Time Management – Practices What It Preaches!

Rating: 5 of 5: TMBOA Recommended

Author: Jim Randel
Format: Paperback

What I like about Jim Randel’s The Skinny On books, is that they are like hiring an excerpt consultant to come and spend a couple of hours teaching from their extensive research and experience, all for the price of a couple of cups of coffee. Written in a power point type fashion with wonderfully simple but effective and well illustrated characters, Randel teaches through fictional case studies. Peppered throughout these studies are the wisdom of experts who have been well researched and quoted by Randel along with an extensive bibliography for those wanting to delve deeper. Usually when I attend a conference or listen to an expert speaker, I consider it well worth my time if I can learn one new factoid or item that I can put into practice. While I have read a number of the references Jim uses in his books, I still found multiple take-aways to use going forward making reading The Skinny On books well worth the time.

In The Skinny on: Time Management, there were a number of items that resonated with me. First off is the idea of inertia, that is to say an object at rest stays at rest which is why it is many times easier to do nothing because it takes so much effort to get going; but one can also take advantage of inertia in that once something is moving it tends to stay moving. Therefore, getting things done becomes much easier once one gets started. One of the keys to getting started is when creating to-do lists is to not just list the item to get done, but also the first few key steps that must be taken to accomplish the task. In this way, it is much easier to begin a to-do item because most of the energy required to start is the forming of the action steps, especially the first, to be taken. That way when one gets to the fourth or fifth item on the list for that day, instead of staring at the item and thinking through how to attack it - which likely includes remembering what the item was to begin with, it’s implications, etc. – one skips all these steps because that work has already been done and the first few actions to be taken are already there! On a related note, the author quotes an interesting statistic that one immediately increases their efficiency 25% just by creating a to-do list because of the focus it provides.

The idea of batching similar work is also good because it forces planning, increases focus and as a result increases efficiency; Randel quotes “effective beats busy every time”. Lessons on prioritization are also good. What has worked for me is to use index cards for to-do lists: one to-do for each card. This way I can list the item, its key action steps on the left side of the card, and status on the right side. Each morning I take my list of index cards and prioritize them in order of greatest importance and impact. When each one is done, I collect them in an every growing pile of accomplishments which provides positive reinforcement and feedback in the short term (which helps to keep inertia) and for the bigger items these finished cards serve as reminders of what I’ve accomplished when writing my self review at performance cycle time.

Regardless of the methods you use, Randel’s book contains a lot of information packed into a small and engaging package. Perhaps not all ideas will resonate with everyone, but there is so much good content here, everyone will gain a key take-away or two.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is another in a series of books that attempts to boil down a large subject area into an easy-to-read format. Intended for busy people who want just the bullet points, this book looks at how to best manage your time.

Write out a time journal for an entire week to see just how you are spending your time. You may think that you are being efficient and productive, but seeing it on paper may change your mind. Can changes be made in your schedule, with more time given to more productive activities? You need to set goals for yourself, whether long-term or short-term. Then you will know how to get from where you are to where you want to be. If your goal is important enough to you, then some other thing you are doing may have to be dropped totally. Choices were never meant to be easy.

The book then covers many ways to maximize your time. Fight the urge to procrastinate. Touch a piece of paper, or email, only once; either respond to it, get rid of it or put it in your file to be worked on later. Are there gaps in your day, like when you are sitting in a waiting room, when you could be working on your Blackberry? Are you a "morning person" or a "night owl?" Work on your hardest and most unpleasant tasks when you are most alert and awake. Learn to plan your day, but don't go overboard with the planning. Prioritize your tasks; which ones come first, and which ones can wait. Break a huge task into smaller, more manageable pieces. Can you batch several appointments, for instance, and get them done in one day? Doing crossword puzzles is a good way to improve your memory. Learn how to focus when you are on a task, and not let distractions get in your way. De-cluttering your office, and your email inbox, will always help. The act of writing a daily To Do list helps focus your mind on what you need to do that day.

Instead of reading a bunch of books on how to manage your time, read this book. It can be read in an hour or so, and does an excellent job of telling the busy person just what they need to know. It is a gem of a book.

[Naomi Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to be fair to this book. I suspect that I'm just not the intended audience for this book. I would say it is meant for people who 1) don't like reading much, or are strongly visual/imagery learners and 2) have limited exposure to previous works on the subject. I correspond to none of those categories. Each page (for the most part) is divided into two boxes, like a graphic novel or a PowerPoint slide deck. Our narrator, a stick figure, lectures earnestly amid cartoon blackboards, flip charts, and such. There is a stick alter ego for the reader, and various other walk-on stick figures.

The material is not new to anyone who has read the time management standard books, which are quoted extensively. Still, it's not a horrible book. It's just ever so definitely not MY book.

One caveat that may matter to some: Eckhart Tolle, Napoleon Hill, and a few other New-Agey types are quoted. If you are annoyed by the create-your-own-reality types, you will roll your eyes or rinse out your mouth at some points.

[Tami · Rating 5 out of 5]

We all could use a few extra hours each day. There’s always far too much to do and never enough time and energy to do it all. With that said, when we actually examine how we spend our “24 hour gift”, it is surprising how much time (and energy) is wasted.

We treat every task like it is a priority then wonder why nothing ever gets done. We procrastinate and get decide that ten minutes surfing on the Internet or watching television won’t hurt. Only to realize that an hour somehow got away from us.

The Skinny on Time Management is sort of a Power Point presentation about time management presented in book form. The main character is a little stick man who presents realistic, tell it like it is time management techniques. A little bit of humour makes the process less painful, especially when we have to admit that maybe we need to tighten priorities and spend a little less time wasting our precious resource. Awareness is key, then you have to take action. It makes sense.

[Linda B · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting, informative and quick read to learn time management skills. It is plain, simple and to the point so as not to waste your time! It is not at all stuffy, but lighthearted, and I love the stick figure people and the Power-Point style pages. This book teaches the reader how to tackle procrastination, goals setting, focusing, creating a time journal, prioritizing, distractions, and much more.

The Skinny on Time Management has been very helpful for me as someone working in a busy medical office. I do have to say though that it would have also been helpful back when I had my first career which was as a homemaker and mom. In business and in the home we can all use lessons on using our time wisely.

I recommend this book for those in the business setting, in-services, homemakers, and even for teens in school.

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fun read …... it’s full of drawings, dialogue and text that is so easy to read and absorb. It only took me about an hour and a half to read it all. And it really works! I’ve found myself thinking a lot about the various ways I can find more hours in my day since I finished it.

The first part of the book deals with how you are presently spending your time and the second part analyzes whether you are using the hours you have to maximum effectiveness.

Set Yourself Goals - Make a To-Do List every morning and prioritise - Focus on one thing at a time - Planning and Preparation is the key. Just a few of the suggestions.

The book uses humour, it doesn’t preach, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and it doesn’t talk down to its readers.

A Self-Help book that does what it says on the cover!

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to judge a book like the skinny on books. To me, they tend to seem like a cliffs notes for the subject that they are on. Or, with the stick figure presentation, a cross between a graphic novel of sorts and a cliffs notes.

In any case, The Skinny on Time Management took a lot of the key points and methods that I've read about in other places, added a few great new twists to it, and presented it quickly and easily and in a way that I really felt got the message across.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this for my teenage son, and decided to read it myself, first. It was a great, quick review of principles and techniques I've learned along the way. The format has an informal, get-to-the-point quality that I think will especially appeal to my son (and others of his generation). I'll give it to him when he gets home from school today: I hope he'll read it!

[Jamie Laird]

Great book! Awesome cartoons, excellent dry humor, and most important - very short - for those of us trying to juggling more than enough hand fulls at once. Highly recommend for everybody who would like to make use of their most valuable asset.

[Abdelhak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really changed my perspective about time management. I read it when I was in my third year in university, it was a tough year and I needed to manage my time perfectly and it helps me a lot.