Time Management Systems

Time Management Systems is the place that everything comes together...You'll integrate all of the learning and techniques, and have a way to handle whatever comes your way. This is where the rubber meets the road.

Currently the two most arguably popular and effective time management systems are Getting Things Done (GTD), based on the work of David Allen, and the Rapid Planning Method (RPM), from Tony Robbins. Even though the systems have quite a bit in common, they approach time management from completely different focuses: GTD is a bottom-up system, and RPM is a top-down system.

Which approach is best? Well...they both work extremely well....which is best for you really depends on your personality.

Do you like to start with the details of a plan or project, working your way up to the bigger picture? Or do you prefer starting with the big picture, and flushing out all of the details later?

Either way, you'll still end up in a similar place....it's just how you get there that's different. Both work extremely well, and will get you to the same result, they simply follow different paths.

First, let's talk about the commonalities. Both systems give you a way to do a couple of the most critical factors of time management:

Second, there's a major disadvantage of both systems: they take time to learn. Ask yourself, is it worth investing some of the most precious resource you have, your time, into learning something that will give you more of it?

It all comes back to the question of the importance of time management:

A small amount of time invested up from can give you huge amounts of time in the end.

So which time management system is best?  I use the best of both:  

• The top down planning of Tony Robbins' Rapid Planning Method, and

• The bottom up organization of David Allen's Getting Things Done