The return on investment and cost of time management systems is not a topic many time management authors discuss.  They happily discuss making lists, setting up software and gizmos and other methods of “saving” time and increasing productivity.

The truth of the matter is that any time management system including the ones I have developed cost time to implement.  Like any other investment and make no mistake about it time is invested, time management systems must be evaluated in terms of the return on investment. So, if a particular time management system takes five hours a week to implement and maintain, if it does not save you more than five hours and in my opinion much more than five hours a week why would you do it.

If you are making lists, updating lists, re-typing lists and priorities into a software program, this is in actuality time you could be using to do the true things you need to get done. So making a list of the things you need at the grocery store saves you the time of unnecessary trips when you realize you forgot something. This simple example should be used to look at all of your time management activities. Your system takes a certain amount of time to implement and maintain.  Therefore, it must make productive by a multiple of the invested time through either saved time or increased focus on important goals.

Now there are no set formulas for this calculation, but you can keep a time log of where your time is spent and estimate if the invested time produces a return.  Alternatively, you can look at the number of tasks you complete or hours you work in total to estimate if there are in fact improvements to your productivity.  So take a good look at how much time you are investing in time management and try to calculate if the time is actually providing you with a return of more time saved elsewhere in your life.

This is why for many people a simple system is the way to go to gain immediate improvements in productivity without a huge investment of time to realize them.