Chapter 2: A Few Myths About Managing Your Time. If you take aspirin after drinking alcohol, you’ll never get a headache. If you read in dim light, you’ll eventually go blind. Water going down a drain in Australia will always flow counterclockwise. T hese and other beliefs have so often been repeated that they’ve taken on a life of their own. Yet each is absolutely false. When beliefs are repeated or put into print, they tend to become more credible, even factual. Such myths seem especially indestructible in time management lore. Worse, they can erode true commitment to an organized lifestyle. This. | A Few Myths About Managing Your Time If you take aspirin after drinking alcohol you ll never get a headache. If you read in dim light you ll eventually go blind. Water going down a drain in Australia will always flow counterclockwise. These and other beliefs have so often been repeated that they ve taken on a life of their own. Yet each is absolutely false. When beliefs are repeated or put into print they tend to become more credible even factual. Such myths seem especially indestructible in time management lore. Worse they can erode true commitment to an organized lifestyle. This chapter examines the four most treacherous myths that you may encounter as you manage your time. Myth 1 Time Management Is Just Another Label for Obsessive Behavior For most people obsession has a meaning that s easy to identify and agree upon it s an excessive preoccupation with 14 Copyright 2003 by the McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Click here for Terms of Use. A Few Myths About Managing Your Time 15 anything. Psychologists define it more precisely. To them obsessions are persistent and often irrational thoughts that creep into consciousness and are hard to chase out of the mind. Some mild but typical examples a tune that keeps running through your head the fear that you forgot to lock your front door the worry that you left a confidential document on your desk at the office. When an obsession triggers actions often strange and of little or no value this is called a compulsion. A classic example from Shakespeare Lady Macbeth compulsively washes her hands to rid herself symbolically of guilt. To psychologists Shakespeare s example is telling for they theorize that obsessive-compulsive behavior is an indirect way of resolving an anxiety or a repressed wish. Compulsive actions frequently are anchored to time. A few are relatively harmless though they do generate unwarranted stress. For example do you really need to know that you can get to work 30 seconds faster by taking an alternate route .
