Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play [Paperback]

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

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

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.