T I m e m a n a g e m e n t

Your Quality of Life 
No matter how appropriate your job is for you, the quality of
your life is going to be largely determined by three things.
The first is the quality of your inner life: how well you get
along with yourself, how much you like yourself, and how
good you feel about your character and personality. Inner
development takes time and reflection, plus reading and
thinking about the great questions of life.
The second area is your health. No amount of success
will compensate for ill health. Take time to eat the right
foods, exercise regularly, and get proper rest and recreation.
Sometimes, the best use of your time is to go to bed early
and get a good night’s sleep. 
Finally, and most important of all, take time for your
relationships. The people you care about and who care
about you are the most critical factors in your life. Never
allow yourself to get so caught up in your work that you
ignore the primacy of those key relationships with your
spouse, children, and close friends. 
A great life is one that is in balance. If you spend
sufficient time preserving and enhancing the quality of your
relationships, you will find that you get more joy, satisfaction,
and fulfillment out of your work; you’ll find success.
A wise old doctor once observed, “I never spoke to a
businessman on his deathbed who said that he wished he
had spent more time in the office.”
Thank you, and good luck in using these ideas in every
part of your life.
C O N C L U S I O N
99
American Management Association / www.amanet.org

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American Management Association / www.amanet.org

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I N D E X
ABCDE method of lists, 35–36
action, vs. reaction, 5
activities, of greatest value, 55
administrative tasks, vs. creative
tasks, 71–74
advertisements in magazines, 91
agenda
for meeting, 86–87
for phone call, 82
Akerson, Dan, 33
alternatives, 18–19
anxiety, 11
lack of control and, 1
assumptions, 18
attraction of distraction, 66
balance, 98, 99
Banfield, Edward, 21
batching tasks, 78–80
reading, 90–91
beginning of day, task choices, 42
behaviors, visualizing change, 8–9
beliefs about yourself, 6
Bierce, Ambrose, The Devil’s
Dictionary, 16
Billings, Josh, 28
blocks of time, 71–74
books, decision to read, 91–92
boss, key result areas of, 58
burnout, avoiding, 11–12
change in behavior, visualizing, 8–9
charting projects, 29–33
checklists, 29
clarity, 27, 57–58
in goals, 30
on key result areas, 53
in outcomes, 17
cluttered desk, vs. clear, 96–97
comfort zone, 37, 41
commuting, audio programs 
during, 94
concentration, 62–66
consequences of tasks, 35
conversation, with coworkers, 75
correspondence, batching tasks, 78
Covey, Stephen, 17
creative tasks, vs. administrative
tasks, 71–74
curiosity, 81
cushion, in time planning, 63
daily “to-do” list, 34–39
deadline, for goal, 32
decision making, 7, 22–23
decisiveness, 2
delegating work, 37, 59–61
deleting tasks, from to-do list, 37
delusion, quadrant of, 51
depression, lack of control and, 1
desire, 2
American Management Association / www.amanet.org

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desk, clear vs. cluttered, 96–97
determination, 2
The Devil’s Dictionary (Bierce), 16
discipline, 2
distraction, attraction of, 66
Do Not Disturb strategy, 73
Drucker, Peter, 18, 41, 88, 96