Time Management - Pioneer

Obviously to live a full life you need to be able to manage your time effectively. To be time poor means that probably you are doomed to a life that is similar to that of the rat running interminably around in circles in its'' cage. A syndrome best left to the poor rat - not to be emulated by we humans if we can possibly help it! And chasing our tails continually and without planning our time properly could quite possibly preclude enjoyment of an existence beyond the earning of that almighty dollar. What we all need, indeed should demand is a life which includes some of the better aspects of living such as talking to your spouse, getting to know your children, taking in a movie or two ,taking the dog for a walk, the odd holiday or two - even time to relax and smell the roses...

And it is never too early to learn Time Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time ) skills, the benefits are huge, not only for people at home, members of the workforce but also college and university students, in fact everyone who has a deadline in their lives basically so I guess this means all of us!

If you are wishing to acquire TM skills and are looking for a professional time management course or seminar most suited to your needs - google the words "time management" and you will be bowled over by the response!

But more to the point for me is who here remembers the film "Cheaper By The Dozen"? A film based on a book of the same name which depicted the true life story of the Gilbreth family - of pioneer time management fame.. One of my favourite films as a child - saw it many times as it was deemed emminently suitable for children boarding in convents and sat right up there with anything involving Danny Kaye or Shakespeare. I think I endured sitting through "Julius Caesar" at least twenty times during the course of my 12 and a half years of boarding. - et tu brute?

The large family Gilbreth (12 children) were steered through their collective growing phase by two committed parents - one parent filled with brilliant ideas where the other patiently saw that the ideas were progressed whilst the "head" of the family was on some overseas seminar, or interstate speaking tour.

So while these words are from my memory the segments that have stayed with me are when the older girls want - and totally against parental wishes - to have their long locks cut off, and replaced with a bob! The eldest daughter whose name I think was Anne, one night in the bathroom, takes the plunge and the scissors to her hair, hacks it all off, all the saying she was doing it for the sake of the younger ones coming up behind her! there were certainly tears at bedtime that night....then there was the female bathing suit problem at Nantucket, where the family holidays regularly took place and the girls felt incredibly old fashioned (especially when BOYS from their college appeared on "their" beach) and they naturally wanted to wear more modern bathing suits...a very big no no. Long legged, scratchy woollen black and white neck to knee numbers, complete with mob caps, were the go and for some inexplicable reason Gilbreth had a problem with his daughters wishing to update their look. I can't imagine what Mr. Gilbreth would say now to what the young ladies of today don't actually cover their bodies with... One of the funniest parts of the movie (an old black and white) was Mr. G. going out on dates - chaperoning - his daughters and their beaus. "Just ignore me" he would say as he sat at the back of the dance hall reading his newspaper...

But the big thing in the Family Gilbraith's lives was the fact that Mr. Gilbreth was the pioneer of "Time Management" and much of what he advocated, taught and practised on his 12 children still stands today. He used to teach them subliminally - his method of teaching the french language springs to mind here - there would be great posters written out in french stuck up all over the house - in the toilet, the kitchen, the dining room so that the children in their day-to-day lives learned this new language through his time saving methods . They would also go to sleep with french language tapes whirring in clunky machine beside the individual beds - implanting knowledge into the deepest recesses of their brains. Restful? I doubt it - but time saving - a definite win.

Mr. G. was always devising some cost efficient and time saving method to tackle
problems and this is what he took to great effect, into the many burgeoning American factories and businesses; a forerunner to many of the cost efficiencies and effective management tools used in business today.

Methods that are utilised not just in the USA but right across the world.. A brilliant man of foresight with a very clever wife Lillian Giilbreth, who after he suddenly died as the result of a heart attack on a railway station; took over his training/teaching role. However I believe dying so suddenly at this point was not an effective use of his time as he was then at the pinnacle of his career! but his brilliant work was carried on by his family.

copyright: a.a.gallagher. June 2009