The Time Trap

The Time Trap is a book of common sense. And by that I don't mean common sense that people have forgotten about and therefore need to be reminded of. The common sense in The Time Trap is common sense that most people have either ignored or not yet discovered.

In the former case, there are many people who ignore the common sense in The Time Trap because of more fundamental challenges. They're like the telemarketers who have forgotten that calling people during dinner time to try to sell them something they don't want is rude. It's not that they never knew it, but that other things are more important (read: money) and they know that a certain amount of rudeness can get them some money. So some people ignore common time management techniques because they know that doing so can accomplish other objectives that they have, whether or not they acknowledge them. One example is the person whose work just isn't as important to them as tonights baseball game. No amount of time management technique will help this person be more focused and accomplish more at work. They just won't. Because the game is more important they'll give more thought and effort to the game, whether by reading the latest Sports Illustrated, browsing the teams web sites, or chatting with coworkers about it. In fact, this person does not want to be more effective at managing their time to do more work - they're already quite effective at getting less done at work, while appearing to do enough, so they can spend more time on the game. The problem of time management in this case is not the techniques but the motivations, the fundamental desires and attitudes of the individual.

The common sense in The Time Trap also lies undiscovered by many. They just haven't thought about the issue enough to have realized some very self-evident truths. Once again this is a problem of paradigms: someone who is not aware that they can live a better life by leading and managing their daily and weekly actions will not have considered how to do so. Most people who do want to have more time, either to do better at the current priorities in their lives or to have time for neglected priorities, can generally come up with the common sense in The Time Trap with a little thought.

Now, that being said, the book can make one more aware of the possibilities of time and life management. Mackenzie consistently talks about gaining an extra two hours a day through effective time management. The techniques are generally geared toward helping knowledge workers do their work with less interruptions and busywork. Each of the twenty "biggest" time wasters are listed with an analysis of causes and a discussion of techniques for saving time. Many of the concepts can be very helpful, such as keeping a time log, triaging mail, phone calls, and visitors, proper delegation, and holding effective meetings.

However, I felt frustrated with the lack of cohesiveness throughout the book. In some ways, because there are so many different techniques and no real way of tying them together, The Time Trap merely introduces a bunch of new things "to do" that add to the stress and hassle of everyday life. Although Mackenzie does a good job of looking at specific problems and possible solutions, he does not find a comprehensive solution to effective time management. This book may leave many people wanting more, either immediately or over time. They may get a sense of some underlying principles of time and life management, but because they aren't made explicit (I doubt Mackenzie could make them explicit) they remain just out of reach. An example of this is the way that Mackenzie recommends we use our extra two hours everyday. Half of the time he encourages us to use it to enrich our personal lives by doing things like spending time with family. The other half of the time he emphasizes using it to be more productive at work, thus adding more value to your employer. While I believe that effective life leadership makes it possible to do both, Mackenzie's suggestions are nowhere near adequate for the task. He sets the reader up for failure by seeming to imply that they can do it all. In fact, this book could very likely lead a person to fall right back into time trap #4 - attempting too much.

Also, returning to my initial thoughts that many time management problems are related to our attitudes, paradigms and desires, we see that The Time Trap does not address this at all. Put in the context of a new paradigm, many of these techniques could be quite helpful. But without a change in attitudes and desires, trying to change our behavior alone will be both difficult and slow. While I suspect that anyone who reads The Time Trap will get out two or three techniques that can help them now, most people will not find a truly comprehensive plan for better managing their time.