Time Management Magic

How to Get More Done Every Day: Move from Surviving to Thriving

Lee Cockerell

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781599186153
• eBook ISBN: 9781642793192
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

A Disney executive VP shares his indispensable time management secrets in this guide to accomplishing more every day.
 
During Lee Cockerell's career as the senior operating executive of Walt Disney World Resorts, he led a team of forty thousand employees. He was responsible for the operations of twenty resort hotels, four theme parks, two water parks, and the ESPN Sports Complex. Having so many responsibilities taught Lee a lot about time management, and he began to share his expertise on the subject to help others make the best use of their time.
 
The time management secrets Lee developed have become one of his most requested corporate training lectures and are now available to you in this tell-all book. However, this book is not just about managing your time. It is about life management as well. The executive time management secrets contained in this book will help you keep all parts of your life under control and jump-start your personal and professional growth. Lee's first piece of advice is "Don't underestimate what you can achieve."

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

H. JACKSON BROWN

CHAPTER 1

This Is Your Life!

One of the most important things you can do is to sit down and think deeply about how you spend your time, where you don’t spend your time and where you should be spending your time—not just at work, but also in every part of your life. The quality of your life is directly affected by how and where you spend your time.

In this day and age, just about everyone feels overwhelmed by all the demands on their time. Those demands have become more intense than ever. Most people are required to do more at work, and that, coupled with their multiple responsibilities outside of work, can be so stressful that they simply feel out of control. And that is one of the worst feelings we can have. It is not the stress that kills you; it’s the distress from feeling out of control.

But here’s one of the most important things I’ve learned: Most people are not overworked … they are under-organized.

We need to figure out how to be more organized, so we can get all the urgent, vital and important things done before it’s too late. I believe that the average person can do 50 percent more than they are doing now, including all the right things, if they have an effective system for keeping their lives under control.

The number one excuse people use for not getting done what should be done is, “I did not have enough time.” Throughout this book I will show you why that is a ridiculous statement. It is really nothing more than an excuse, since we all have exactly the same amount of time. Think for a moment about how profound that statement is. It means that Oprah, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and J.K. Rowling have no more time available to them than what is afforded to you and me. The same is true of every successful person throughout history who’s become a household name: Thomas Edison, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr., Estée Lauder—no one has more than 24 hours in a day … and no one has less than that either.

Simply put, some very busy people get it all done, and some people who are not all that busy don’t get much done.

The problem is, people believe the “I don’t have enough time” excuse. They really believe that’s just the way it is. But nothing is just the way it is. Things are the way you let them be. Again, we all have the same amount of time. In my experience, people usually have time to do what they want to do, but they don’t make time to do what they should do.

As I always tell leaders, “Your role is to do what has to be done, when it has to be done, in the way it should be done, whether you like it or not and whether they like it or not.” And leadership is not about titles, or job descriptions, or salary grade. There’s a big difference between leadership and management. Management is about how to do. Leadership is about how to be. It’s about having influence and making an impact on others. And leadership is not just for the workplace. We are all leaders. In one way or another, whether in business, with our families, neighborhoods, communities or our places of worship, we are all leaders, and we need to be much better organized and much more reliable.

Parents should pay particular attention to this idea. Children are not supposed to be happy all the time. Your responsibility as a parent is to do what has to be done, when it has to be done, in the way it should be done, whether your children like it or not. Turn that TV off. Get them to put away the electronic games and computers. Get them to play outside and to read books, whether they like it or not. Physical fitness and a love of reading are among the most important gifts you can give your children.

Parents are allowed to say “no.” In fact, if you love your kids you will say “no” often, for their own good. Recently, San Francisco tried to impose a law on McDonald’s to eliminate the toy in their kiddie meals. I thought that was a joke. The toy is not the problem. The nutritional content of the food is not the problem. Parents are the problem. It’s not McDonald’s fault that so many people are overweight. It’s the individual’s fault. It stems from a lack of self-discipline. With self-discipline almost anything can be achieved in every aspect of life.

Think of all the leaders who have had a big impact on the world over the centuries. Most of them were not General Managers or Executive Vice Presidents or Presidents. They were not CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, COOs, CMOs, CPOs or any other chiefs you can think of. They were individuals who were committed to what they were doing. They were willing to go all the way. They were passionate, highly focused and relentless. They had a can-do attitude. They never gave up.

I think of people like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks—they

“Efficient” is being able to get things done. “Effective” is doing the right things in the right order, and making sure you address everything that is urgent, vital and important, in every part of your life.

were ordinary people when they started, and they left the world a much better place. Think about Abraham Lincoln. Without his focus and determination, the 13th Amendment of our Constitution would not have passed, and the curse of slavery would have persisted. He and the others did what most people said could not be done. They didn’t believe them. And as Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Never underestimate what a difference you can make. And don’t say you don’t have the time. You have the same amount of time as all those people whose achievements we celebrate. This book will help you manage that time to accomplish everything you care about. If you are already a disciplined person, you will learn how to channel that discipline into being even more efficient and more effective. Being both efficient and effective is the name of the game.

“Efficient” is being able to get things done. “Effective” is doing the right things in the right order, and making sure you address everything that is urgent, vital and important, in every part of your life.

Pay Now or Pay Later

Before I took a time management seminar over thirty years ago, I was putting in way too many hours at work. I was regularly working Saturdays and Sundays and taking work home every night. I got the work done, and I considered myself very well organized. But I had very little balance in my life. Then I took the course, and I learned a system that changed my life. As soon as I started using what I learned, I was rewarded, and I’ve been rewarded every day since.

That’s why I wrote this book: so you can benefit from what I’ve learned. It will reward you in ways you have never imagined. You may feel overwhelmed now. You may feel hopeless because there’s too much to do and too little time to do it. Those feelings will disappear in time. It is not hopeless. You can learn to be more organized and disciplined—but you have to want to.

People ask me what I worry about, and I can tell you that one thing I worry about is how disorganized people are.

It is really quite a problem. Most people have absolutely no system in place for how to plan their day, week, month or year. They come to their workplace and follow systems to accomplish their work, like using checklists and following operating guidelines, policies and procedures. When it comes to managing their personal lives though, they have no system. They hope, wish and pray that everything will work out, but that is not a system. In fact, sadly, most people actually do a better job of managing time for their organization than they do for themselves.

I always ask people in my Time/Life Management class one question, and they always get the answer right. The question is, “Who is most responsible for controlling the events in your life?”

You know the answer, and it’s the first word in this sentence: YOU! I hope this book and approach will help you think about your responsibilities at work, at home and in all other aspects of your life, such as your health, your work in your community, your own personal development and your finances.

Speaking of which, one aspect of managing time is to think both sho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. This Is Your Life!
• Chapter 2. It’s Your Time… and Your Life!
• Chapter 3. How to Use a Day-Timer® Daily Planner
• Chapter 4. Assigning Right Priorities: Urgent, Vital & Important!
• Chapter 5. Mom’s Advice on Procrastination: …As In, Clean Up Your Room!
• Chapter 6. Priscilla’s Advice on Preoccupation: …As In, Pay Attention!
• Chapter 7. Final Thoughts: …As In, When Are You Going to Get Started?
• Lee Cockerell Resources
• About The Author… Lee Cockerell