Product Description

Time is what our lives are made of. Failure to use it properly is disastrous. Yet most books on time management don’t work because they take little account of human psychology or the unexpected. This book, written for everyone who has to juggle different demands in a busy schedule, includes lots of help and advice in finding a system that works effectively and leads to more enjoyment of work and leisure.

‘I left Mark Forster’s time management workshop a changed woman. Yesterday I used his system for a whole day. It was stress-free and fun. I felt energised and satisfied at the end of it.’
Sarah Litvinoff

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9671 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Mark Forster argues in refreshingly sharp prose that time management is too difficult for most people. There is nothing you can do to change the pattern of 24 hours, seven days, 52 weeks and so on. "There is no such thing as time management", he says. "Time just is." But what you can do is to focus more effectively. Confiding that he is naturally disorganised, Forster, a life coach, manager of his own network marketing business and Resources Officer for the Diocese of Chichester, shares his own "attention focusing" techniques. His methods are based on his own experience and on the workshops and seminars he runs on how to get everything done. These include looking beyond the immediate tasks, learning to say "no", sorting out the significant from the trivial, and costing everything you do against a notional hourly rate of pay so that you can evaluate every activity against its "cost"--from watching the television news to going to a meeting or praying. Accept, he says, that the main reason most people don't do things is disinclination--not lack of time. So you must be honest to identify resistance--the "R factor"--in yourself. Then deal with it. It is important to make time every day for "depth" activities too. Yoga, meditation or journal writing, for example, can create "an oasis of calm" in "the daily grind of clashing priorities". Or it could be learning a language or playing a sport. But don't try and do many different things. Foster laments our modern tendency to favour depth over breadth by getting involved in "more and more things in a shallower and shallower way". There is plenty to think about here and some sound practical advice. The only problem is that you have to find time to read it! --Susan Elkin

About the Author
Mark Forster is Resources Officer for the Diocese of Chichester, a life coach and has his own network marketing business. He frequently runs workshops and seminars on time management.

Customer Reviews

Manage your attention because you can't manage time
My title sums up the theme of the book: it is an illusion to think you can manage time but you can manage what you focus on. And if you have too many things to give sufficient focused and regular attention to them, you need to make some brutal decisions and cut things out. This book absolutely rocks. Take it from someone who has read more time-management books than most (I think) - this one convincingly explains what is wrong with the other approaches and then goes on to help you develop ways to cut out what you need too (yes, sorry, some stuff may have to go) and to systematically deal with the rest). What a book! I have been reading it as fast as I can and I cannot reccomend it enough, especially for the price it is available here. I feel liberated and mentally stronger and more focused after only three days. BUY IT, USE IT AND BE FREE!!

An excellent and refreshing book on a familiar topic.
Another time management book? Another list of ideas on how to do things better, another reminder of how much more there is to do?

A closer look at the title suggests something rather different "How to get everything done, and still have time to play". This book obviously isn't going to be just another conventional book repeating old formulae.

When you then read in the first chapter, that Mark Forster is far from organized himself and that he regards himself as the kind of person who does his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve, you know that this isn't going to be some super-efficient robotic approach.

Mark's own efforts to manage his time led him into an examination of familiar time management techniques, such as "do it now", and the first part of the book is an exploration of these techniques. He shows how they might be useful, and also illustrates their limitations.

He then goes on to show us that what is more helpful is to develop a "time-and-life management" system, something that can apply all of the time, rather than only in specific circumstances. Crucially, he also recognises that the reason a lot of time management schemes fail is that we have some psychological resistance to the tasks or processes in hand.

Where this book excels is that Mark understands these resistances from his own experience, and shares with us his tried and tested methods for working with these resistances. Rather than suggesting techniques that go against the grain, he has developed a system that takes you through your resistance. For instance, he acknowledges that, in general, people often tend to work better in short bursts rather than long slogs. Rather than trying to change this behaviour, he his system takes full advantage of this.

Reading the book and seeing the system unfold, mixed in with Mark's personal experiences, is like seeing the light.

What he suggests is simple, and what is best it works. In one of the "intervals" in the book, we learn what Mark was able to achieve one "leisurely" Sunday. He runs through a whole list of achievements, work, domestic and leisure. Just when you are wondering how anyone could get so much done, he then throws in that he was also away from home for eight hours delivering presentations!

As Mark says "If you want to be able to work without resistance or procrastination, so that you feel totally on top of your work without stress and pressure", then read this book.

As a coach, I read a lot of personal development books. This is one I can highly recommend. It is like a breath of fresh air and will change your approach to time management forever.

Excellent title - change your habits with a little effort
I don't often write book reviews, but was moved to write a review of this book because I found it made a difference to me after reading just the first few chapters. The author has a way of writing that indicates he has 'been there' - a disorganised, over stressed mess - and he show's step by step how we can get out of the trenches and start living again. Using simple techniques and 'brain muscle' exercises that can slowly be built upon, he shows us where we are going wrong in our attitudes about time and time management. Highly recommended.