Managing Your Goals

Time management pioneer Alec Mackenzie moves from how we spend our hours to a larger question: what are those hours for?

Many people set goals. Far fewer manage them.

That gap is where Alec Mackenzie, one of the pioneers of modern time management, does his best work. His 1972 book The Time Trap, revised in 1990, helped launch the modern time management boom. In Managing Your Goals, he moves from the question of how we spend our hours to a larger question: what are those hours for?

The premise: why more people don’t set goals

The program starts with a simple observation. People who have goals and know how to manage them usually get more done and feel more satisfied with their lives. So why don’t more people set goals? Mackenzie’s answer is psychological, not logistical. The program looks at the emotional traps that keep people from setting goals, such as fear of failure, fear of commitment, and the comfortable illusion that staying busy means making progress.

“A goal that never shows up on your calendar is only a wish.”

MACKENZIE ON LINKING GOALS TO PRIORITIES

A practical sequence

Know where your time really goes. He asks people to do the one thing they least want to do: keep a time log for at least three days and record every interruption and shift of attention, however small. Most people are surprised by the results.

Name your time wasters. Mackenzie’s well-known list includes managing by crisis, inadequate planning, attempting too much, ineffective delegation, personal disorganization, lack of self-discipline, the inability to say no, procrastination, and unproductive meetings. Each one quietly takes time away from goals.

Link goals to priorities. Mackenzie teaches readers to set clear, realistic goals, rank them, and protect time for the ones that matter most. Make it personal. Goal management is not only for the office: the management skills we use at work should come home with us and be applied to every part of our personal lives.

How it shaped our thinking

Mackenzie argued that productivity improvements must come from individuals, and that people who learn to get better results in less time could have a powerful effect on the wider economy. The time audit, the time-waster inventory, and the discipline of saying no are now standard parts of productivity training, and the modern habit of tracking your time owes a great deal to his seminars.

Where it falls short

The material reflects its era. Advice about telephone interruptions and drop-in visitors now needs to be translated into the language of email, messaging apps, and notifications. The audio format also makes it harder to use as a reference than a written workbook would be. Readers who want deep research or new frameworks may find the ideas familiar, partly because so many later writers built on them.

The verdict

Managing Your Goals is a practical, no-nonsense guide for anyone who is always busy but rarely moving forward. Listen to it with a notebook nearby, and be ready to keep that time log.

Recommended for

• Professionals who are always busy but rarely moving forward.
• Managers losing their days to meetings, interruptions, and crises.
• Anyone willing to keep an honest three-day time log.
• Readers who want to bring work-grade goal management into their personal lives.

NOTE TO READERS: This newsletter is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It shares general principles on attitude, mindset, and personal development, and does not constitute psychological, medical, career, financial, or other professional advice. Every reader's circumstances are different, and results from applying these ideas will vary. The views expressed are the author's interpretation of the source material and are not guaranteed to produce any specific outcome. Readers facing significant personal, professional, or mental health decisions should consult a duly qualified professional. The author and Carlos Artiles accept no liability for any outcome arising from the use of this material.