The MTL Professional Development Programme is a collection of 202 PowerPoint presentations that will provide you with step-by-step summaries of a key management or personal development skill. This presentation is on "The Paradoxes of Time" and will show you why time is a paradox and why understanding this paradox helps you manage time well.  

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
THE PARADOXES OF TIME
The unfathomable nature of time
MTL: The Professional Development Programme

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
Attribution: All images are from sources where a Creative Commons license exists for commercial use. All icons are on subscription
from thenounproject. All clipart is from free sources. The MTL Professional Development Programme is copyright of Manage Train
Learn.
The Paradoxes
of Time
Introduction: It is difficult to fully grasp Time as a concept, universal and familiar
though it is. We can see the results of time in our achievements, our
accomplishments and our successes. We can also see how we waste time in our
neglect, our failures and our missed opportunities. The passing of a day, a month, a
year and a lifetime gives us a way to measure our use of time. But we cannot see
Time itself. In this topic, we’ll show you 7 of the paradoxes of Time.

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The Paradoxes of Time
1. TIME NEVER
STOPS
Time is universal yet intensely personal. For
everyone, whoever they are, time moves at the
same rate. In the working week of 40 hours, each
of us has the same opportunity to be productive
for 240 minutes or 14,400 seconds. That’s over 6
million seconds of work energy a year! Yet, few
of us produce at the same rate or to the same
standard. How we spend our time is down to us.
Nothing stays the same
Flickr attribution: /robbn1/3465251311/

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
“Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have.” (Ann
Landers)
To realise the
value of one
second, ask a
person who
has survived
an accident.
To realise the
value of one
minute, ask a
person who
has missed
the train, the
bus or the
plane.
To realise the
value of one
week, ask an
editor of a
weekly
newspaper.
To realise the
value of one
year, ask a
student who
has failed his
final exam.
To realise the
value of one
hour, ask the
lovers who are
waiting to
meet.
To realise the
value of one
day, ask a
daily wage
labourer who
has 10 kids to
feed. to be
creative
To realise the
value of one
millisecond,
ask the
person who
has won a
silver medal in
the Olympics.
To realise the
value of one
month, ask a
mother who
has given
birth to a
premature
baby.
1 2 3 4 6 7 8
5
TheValueofTime

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
2. TIME AS A
RESOURCE
Time is a resource yet like no other. Because time
is one of the factors that determine how well we
work, it is regarded as a resource. Hence, the
common adage that time is money. Yet, unlike
every other resource, such as money, time
cannot be bought or sold, cannot be stored or
traded, and cannot increase or decrease.
Most people have a time reminder near them at all times
Flickr attribution: /stevenconnors/6581581903/

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
The Intangible Resource
The management writer Peter Drucker has described time as
the last great resource left to man. Whereas we know how to
manage the tangible resources of land, buildings, equipment,
materials, money and people, time is still hard to pin down
and manage.
The evidence of mismanaged time is all around us: people
who feel unfulfilled; people who feel stress from excessive
workloads or underloads; and people who complain that
they feel their lives are meaningless and have no direction.
Although it is an intangible resource, time can be managed in exactly the same way as other resources, by
recording how it is used (eg through the use of time logs); analysing what happens to it; planning how to use it
for our benefit; organising our lives around it; and taking action to manage it better.

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
3. THE
COMPLEXITY
OF TIME
Time is complex, yet known to all. Time is the
most familiar resource known to man. Even if we
lack every other resource, such as money, we still
have time. Yet, time is also infinitely complex.
Quantum physicists now tell us that, in fact, time
is an illusion, that it doesn’t really exist except in
our perception of past, present and future
experiences. Instead of moving in a linear
pattern from one point on a timeline to another,
time only exists in the present moment.
Everything else about time, the past and the
future, only exists in our minds.
Past, present, and future
Flickr attribution: /h-k-d/3090641898/

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
The Paradoxes of Time
4. THE PACE
OF TIME
Time moves relentlessly at a fixed speed, but
sometimes it drags and sometimes it flies. Our
clocks and calendars tell us that time moves at a
fixed speed. There are only ever 24 hours in a
day, give or take a few minutes. Yet, many of us
complain that there are not enough hours in the
day to get everything done. Or, when engaged in
something we love doing, we marvel at how time
simply flies past.
Some rush past, others take a break
Flickr attribution: /needoptic/17161230950/

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The Paradoxes of Time
5. THE LIMITS
OF TIME
Time is limited and yet limitless. When each of us
are born, we have a fixed time span, albeit
unknown to us. But as we live, we feel we have
enough time in the world to do anything we like.
We view time as unlimited. As the Roman
emperor, Marcus Aurelius, warned: “You have a
set period assigned you to act in, and unless you
improve it to brighten and compose your
thoughts, it will quickly run off with you and be
lost beyond recovery.”
Though time goes on and on, we don’t
Flickr attribution: /greg4all2/2846339864/

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The Paradoxes of Time
6.
CONTROLLING
TIME
Time defies attempts to be controlled, yet it can
be managed. None of us can control time. Much
as we would like to, we cannot have a bit extra in
the good times, and a bit less in the bad times.
But we can manage time. We can use time to
achieve goals and be creative; we can use time to
work with others; we can use time to organize
the tasks that we must do to get through the
day; and we can plan time so that we fulfil
ourselves as complete human beings.
Take responsibility for your time and life
Flickr attribution: /stevendepolo/4550903693/

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The Paradoxes of Time
7. MANAGING
TIME
Many, maybe most of us, are guilty of wasting
time. We fill up our working lives with empty
rituals, competitive game-playing, and ego-
serving politicking. We avoid responsibility for
what we do with our time, imagining that it is
better for us to hand that responsibility over to
others. Yet, we are all capable of becoming
accomplished time managers. We can wrest back
control of our time from others and make up our
minds to organize it, make the most of every
moment, and at the end of each day look back
on a day that has achieved something of value.
Enjoy your time by making the most of it
Flickr attribution: /76657755@N04/7214596024/

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The Paradoxes of Time
This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn
AFinal
Word
The evidence of mismanaged time is all around us: people who feel unfulfilled; people who feel
stressed; and people who complain that they feel their lives have no direction. Although it is an
intangible resource, time can still be managed in exactly the same way as other resources, by
recording it; analysing it; planning it; organising it; and taking action to manage it better.