Effective time management principles have been the foundation for success for most big businesses in the world today. Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world, or as the group is more accurately called – “moguls.” This group actually contains multi-billionaires, who are exceptionally wealthy people – and actually make up less than 1% of the population. If there’s one thing that’s amazing to see about Bill and other moguls like him, it’s that they’re not only unique in the amount of money they have, but in the unique and unconventional way they think about time.
How Bill Gates does time management
We’ve all heard phrases like “time is money,” and we’ve all heard clichés about how time is a person’s most valuable resource, and it’s worth using it wisely. But it turns out that for some people, these clichés are no longer just “nice phrases” to hang on the fridge, but a real way of life. In the following article, we’ll examine how Bill Gates manages his time, and what can you take from it into your own life?
Principle 1: Procrastination is out of the question
There is no doubt that we started with the most difficult time management principle to implement, but it is perhaps also the principle that has the most impact on time management.
The chronic procrastinators among us will surely know this, that feeling when you have a heavy and difficult task (usually a task that you carry with you for a long time) and the only thought that comes to mind is that all you want to do is postpone that difficult and annoying task for later. Do you know this feeling?
So Bill Gates is adamant about this principle. If we had a way to peer into the man’s thoughts, we probably wouldn’t find the phrase “we’ll do it tomorrow” there… and why?
Bill Gates claims, like many other “moguls,” that time is a person’s most valuable resource, even more so.
Think about it – we have control over our money, where we live, the people we are around, the actions we take, but there is one thing we have no control over – the time that passes, it just passes and we have no control over how fast it will pass. No matter how rich we become, time has always been and will always be the one thing that money cannot buy. Therefore, we must plan our days carefully and make sure that every moment of our day is utilized in the best way possible to become the person we aspire to be.
Remember: One day, just before we die – the moment will come when we will all lie on our deathbeds and think about the lives we had, the big dreams we had, and the people we spent time with. What kind of life would you like to see there? Will you be satisfied with the life you had, or will you regret not doing the things you really wanted to do?
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Principle 2: Young people? Start as soon as you can
Time management is not only at the micro, daily level – but also at the macro level – that is, the months and years. Bill Gates claims that the younger we start, the better for us. In fact, Bill Gates started working when he was 13, his interest and curiosity in the world of computers began since he was a child. His early start had a significant impact on his future in this world, and in particular on his levels of success. Here in Africa, we are used to seeing people only starting to think about the profession they want to pursue at the age of 21, after the army. So for some people, age 13 may sound like an especially early age to start, right?
It turns out that when people start something early in life, they are much more likely to want to continue doing it. Almost all of us have interests or hobbies that we have loved since we were children. The flow of life may make us forget the things we once loved, but they will always be there. On the other hand, if we find a way to turn what we loved as children into a lucrative and profitable occupation, we are less likely to want to give them up later in life. On the contrary: we will only be more and more motivated to go to work every day, and this will increase our level of success.
The second reason why it is advisable for us to start early is that the earlier we start, the faster the compound interest effect on our time will manifest itself and we will see the multiplication in our level of success. Just as there is a compound interest effect on our money, which is manifested in the fact that the longer we invest, the higher the multiplier effect will be – so it is with our time. The earlier we start, the more new knowledge is accumulated on top of previous knowledge, and thus, over the years, the advantage over competitors becomes “unassailable” and success becomes greater. This is one of the greatest effective time management principles the you will implement.
Principle 3: Focus your time on gaining experience
Some people argue that to be successful, we simply need to know how to sell ourselves in job interviews or to clients. They say things like, “I need to be a marketing whiz” or “I don’t have the business acumen of millionaires and billionaires.”
In contrast to them, Bill actually claims that while these things are important, investing in yourself – in upgrading your professional experience and knowledge – gives you the opportunity to provide greater value to everyone, and is ten times more important.
Bill Gates is known as someone who gained a lot of experience in the industry before he entered the business world. After all, it is already known to all concerned that Bill Gates managed to gain years of experience in the industry, already at the age of 13, before he even founded the technology giant Microsoft. The fact that he practiced his software skills and gained experience for so long, gave him the ability to be immune to any other competitor in the industry, and to create a new market that did not exist before with such a great impact on the world.
Principle 4: Break down your time into chunks
Breaking down your time into chunks is another effective time management principle. When we have too many tasks to complete, it can leave us feeling anxious, confused, and helpless. Ultimately, our attention span decreases and we become less productive – precisely when we want to be faster and more focused. So what is Bill’s solution? A well-known method called TimeBoxing, and it works amazingly well!
Gates breaks down the time in his diary into smaller “cubes,” for example, a 5-minute period to perform a “check emails” task. After 5 minutes, he will move on to the next task, and so on.
By the way, Elon Musk also follows this principle: breaking down the day into small segments can increase productivity (according to Stephanie Vose from Fast Company).
It is clear that from time to time it is necessary to stop for urgent and important things, but that is not what prevents him from setting himself a clear deadline by which a certain task will be completed.
If you have several tasks to perform, and you don’t have the option of pushing them all into one place, what you can do is create one “cube” that will contain tasks of a certain type – for example, you can create a task of the “Tasks for Client X” category.
This will keep you focused and make sure you don’t miss anything.
Principle 5: Successful people sleep well at night
Lately, we have witnessed gurus or inspirational speakers claiming that “successful people don’t sleep at night.”
Are you one of those saying so?. So, it turns out that it’s not always true (well… at least not according to Bill Gates).
Bill Gates says he sleeps between 6 and 8 hours a night. It turns out that effective time management actually reflects our ability to produce as much output as possible in as little time as possible – and what to do, part of this also depends on our cognitive functioning. Studies have repeatedly shown that people who sleep less at night tend to pay less attention to details, make more mistakes, and – sometimes – also work more slowly. There is an efficient way to get from A to B, but when a person does not sleep enough for a long period of time, their brain and thinking functions are impaired, and they often will not choose the most efficient way. Not because they do not want to, but because they have difficulty paying attention to it.
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In conclusion, what did we learn?
It is impossible to manage time. Time will continue to pass, and this is a fait accompli that is not in our hands. All that remains for us is to manage ourselves within the space of time, and manage to produce more output in less time. So – the more we apply Bill Gates’ effective time management principles, the more productive we will be and the more we will be able to do with less.
Don’t forget: reading or knowing the rules of one of the richest people in the world is nice; but the real power lies in applying them! So apply Bill Gates’ powerful time management rules, and take your life to the level you dream of.
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