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Time Management

The concept of time management applies in several different domains. In the sense of the scheduling of goods transport capacities, time management, with the goal of minimizing transportation costs, plays an important role for transportation companies. Time management in the coordination of timetables is highly important for railway companies because railway systems are often characterized by high-traffic density and heterogeneous traffic that is sensitive to disturbances.

The concept of time management also applies to the careful scheduling of manufacturing processes. This is especially important for companies that use a just-in-time approach to reduce inventories. Here the necessary parts for the following production step are produced and delivered right before they are needed; a mistake in scheduling can be quite expensive.

The concept of time management can be used in other areas, for example, to describe the organization of work time on the social level. Usually, however, the term is applied in the context of the individual use of time. A steadily growing number of books, articles, and seminars deal with this form of time management, and many companies spend huge amounts of money to improve time management by their employees.

Definition

An analysis of the concept of time management requires a closer examination of the separate concepts of management and of time. The word manage stems from the Italian word maneggiare (meaning to handle), which in turn originates from the Latin word tnanus, which again signifies “hand.” Time management is most often used to describe the professional leading or supervising of a defined unit such as an organization or a business operation.

By knowing which options are available for achieving a specific goal, management can be better able to meet its objectives through planning, organization, and coordination of necessary resources, leading coworkers, and controlling results. In other words, management can be defined as the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of everything necessary to achieve an intended goal.

But is the analogy to other kinds of management correct? There are different things that can be managed in the given sense: staff, money, natural resources, and many more. The question is whether time can be managed like natural resources. As the hundreds of entries in this encyclopedia testify, “time” is of philosophical interest as well as the subject of scientific investigation; furthermore, there is no simple definition of time. What can be said is that we experience the world in a way that allows us to differentiate between space and time.

Whereas process philosophers agree that the flow of time is a fact, philosophers of the manifold think that our experience of the flow of time is an illusion. Even though this question cannot be solved, it is a fact that time serves as an important reference quantity when thinking and communicating about different experiences during our lifetimes. In addition, a shared conception of time—whether time is real or constructed—allows us to coordinate our actions.

Yet at the same time it is important to note that we cannot save time in the sense of saving money or resources. We cannot store it and use it when needed. As individuals we cannot change the course of time.

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