Focus on Time Management and Productivity at Work - Too Much Equality is a Bad Thing

You may not realize it yet, but the time management skills that you learn in school studying for tests, finals, or doing term papers may very well predict your success in the future. Those that use their time wisely can do more with it. I know this because at one point in college I was taking 33 credits in one semester. At the time, I had the record for California colleges for doing this. I have no doubt due to all the multi-taskers in the present period, that someone has now broken that record - I cannot even imagine what the record is today.

However, I can say committing myself to that torture, well, it taught me how to excel at the things I did, and manage my time, wasting none of it. It was either sink or swim, and I had no choice. Forcing myself into that position made me focus on time management and productivity in my work. One thing that had always bothered me was that even though I worked harder than everyone else studying, I noticed that the top grade I could get was only in "A+" and other people in each class had also achieved an A. but, back then an "A" was an "A" either way when it came to the GPA.

There was a great segment on CNBC with Mario Bartiromo interviewing Jack Welch former CEO of General Electric on June 27, 2011 and he said something very interesting. He said "GE had a problem with equality, there was too much of it." And then he told an interesting story about when he was working in the chemistry group. He said that after a great quarter for their business unit, he received a $1,000 raise which back then was a big deal for him, and he was quite happy and felt he'd deserved it.

However when he got back into the office he saw everyone else was happy too. Even some of the folks who were "lumps on a log" and slackers, those who didn't deserve it got raises. He was so upset he walked back to his boss and told him he was quitting. There was too much equality. He had always believed that bonuses were for only those who deserved them, not just for showing up, poor performance, and punching a time clock.

Of course, in the end, the person who worked the hardest in that office at GE in his younger days, eventually went on to run the company, and retire a multi-millionaire. However, he almost quit General Electric because he wasn't rewarded for his hard work, and extra hours he had spent. This is probably a very good lesson in the fact that "A society, organization, business, or government always gets more of what rewards," and therefore we should reward good time management skills and productivity, and not excuses, procrastination, or poor performance. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.