As I’m sitting here waiting on someone who either has no ability to manage their time, or, doesn’t care enough about my time to call and say they are not coming I decided to write a few things down that someone should tell them. I know there are a lot of opinions about being tardy, and, I’m sure plenty of alternate opinions about being “fashionably late” but I am going to expand on the idea of being exactly on time.
“If you are early you are wasting your time, if you are late you are wasting my time”. This concept was taught to me some years back when I had the opportunity to work for an extremely successful business man in Dallas. He was always on time. He was always “exactly” on time. In the 16 months I worked for him he was late one time. You would think that He worked for me the way he apologized profusely. However, it was this experience that sealed the concept he had been teaching me about time management.
Time is a resource you cannot possess. You can account for it (or not), find it (or not), use it (or not), but you can never hold it. Think for just a second of all the time you have wasted today. Can’t think of any? Let me point out a few. (Reading this article is not one of them) 
1) Make a to-do list. What? How could that be a time waster? In most cases people create this huge list of things to do and start at the top. Don’t. Make two lists. One by priority and one by simplicity. Start at the top of both and work down. You will be amazed at how much more you get done.
2) Checking Facebook, Twitter, and E-mail throughout the day. Is your outlook set to every 5 minutes? Do you have Push notification turned on your phone? Dial that back and see the distractions dial back as well. If someone needs you, they know how to get a hold of you.
3) Environmental distractions? No, I’m not talking about allergies. Is your desk to low like mine is to accommodate my wife? Is the wall next to your desk red or some other distracting color (but we like red)? Do you have a radio or TV (or vacuum cleaner) constantly playing in the background? Even though these things are super minor, they add up. Start thinking about how to reduce your distractions.
4) Multi-Tasking. Are you trying to do 5 million things at the same time? Finish something. An easy way to decided if you’re trying to accomplish too much is to finish the day, half day, hour, whatever and see if you have accomplished anything. If you haven’t, cut back.
This is by no means an all inclusive list. I would bet that you have some ideas you can add to this and make it even better. However, the issue here is time management. One of the biggest wastes of time that I see around us every day is people trying to figure out how to not waste so much time. Don’t fall into that trap. Go, get done what you need to get done today. ”Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance ; all such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” James 4:13-17