There is no doubt that time is a business person’s most precious resource. In fact, time is everyone’s most precious resource. We never realize how precious time is until we run out of it. George Burns had 100 years, yet he never had time for his final performance.

We all waste too much of this precious resource. Many years ago when we began teaching methods of improving time management skills, we introduced the concept of 1435 in order to prove a major point. What is 1435? It is the number of minutes left in the day after we waste five minutes. For the average person, we waste over one-third of our workday, either procrastinating or working on tasks that will not help us achieve our long-term objectives.

The key to getting more done? Developing a sense of urgency with regard to what needs to be accomplished. A simple exercise will demonstrate the different state of mind that we must achieve.

Imagine your last vacation. The serenity of knowing that you didn’t have to check messages or get up at a certain time. Perhaps you had no special agenda. After a few days of unwinding, work was the furthest from your mind (hopefully).

Now think of the day before you left on that vacation. Do you now have a different memory? Was that day a little more stressful? We would venture to say that the day before you left was your most effective time management day of the year. That day you accomplished more than any other. You quickly determined priorities and went about achieving those priorities. If you failed, you would not get out of town on time. The day before vacation you had an urgency about what needed to get done. The key to better time management is to develop this sense of urgency every day of your life. How do you do that? Perhaps we should take more vacations!