If you want to manage your time well, you need to understand that time is full of strange paradoxes that can leave us puzzled and unsure. Here are 7 of the most common paradoxes of time.

1. 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 14400 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.

2. 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.

3. 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 experiences. Instead of moving in a linear pattern from one point on a timeline to another, our lives are created by our thoughts in a time-defying way.

4. 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.

5. 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."

6. 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.

7. We all have time, yet few of us can claim to be perfect time managers. 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.

Understand these 7 paradoxes of time and you'll be well on the way to managing your time in a more productive, relaxed and balanced way.

(c) Eric Garner, ManageTrainLearn.com.

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