Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities — especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
Time management involves demands relating to work, social life, family, hobbies, personal interests, and commitments. Using time effectively gives people more choices in managing activities.[1] Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques, especially when accomplishing specific tasks, projects, and goals complying with a due date.
Initially, the term time management encompassed only business and work activities, but eventually, the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Time management is usually a necessity in any project management, as it determines the project completion time and scope.
Differences in the way a culture views time can affect the way their time is managed. For example, a linear time view is a way of conceiving time as flowing from one moment to the next in a linear fashion. This linear perception of time is predominant in America along with most Northern European countries, such as Germany, Switzerland, and England.[2] People in these cultures tend to place a large value on productive time management and tend to avoid decisions or actions that would result in wasted time.[2] This linear view of time correlates to these cultures being more "monochronic", or preferring to do only one thing at a time.
Another cultural time view is the multi-active time view. In multi-active cultures, most people feel that the more activities or tasks being done at once the better. This creates a sense of happiness.[2] Multi-active cultures are "polychronic" or prefer to do multiple tasks at once. This multi-active time view is prominent in most Southern European countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Italy.[2] In these cultures, people often tend to spend time on things they deem to be more important such as placing a high importance on finishing social conversations.[2] In business environments, they often pay little attention to how long meetings last, rather the focus is on having high-quality meetings. In general, the cultural focus tends to be on synergy and creativity over efficiency.[3]
A final cultural time view is a cyclical time view. In cyclical cultures, time is considered neither linear nor event related. Because days, months, years, seasons, and events happen in regular repetitive occurrences, time is viewed as cyclical. In this view, time is not seen as wasted because it will always come back later, hence there is an unlimited amount of it.[2] This cyclical time view is prevalent throughout most countries in Asia, including Japan and China. It is more important in cultures with cyclical concepts of time to focus on completing tasks correctly, thus most people will spend more time thinking about decisions and the impact they will have, before acting on their plans.[3] Most people in cyclical cultures tend to understand that other cultures have different perspectives of time and are cognizant of this when acting on a global stage.[4]