Program Your Subconscious Mind for Time Management Success: 4 Mental Techniques Used by Highly Effective People

Written By Brian Tracy | Time Management | August 28th, 2012 | 

Time management behaviors are very much a matter of choice and what lies within your subconscious mind. You choose to be efficient or you choose to be disorganized. Effective people choose to focus and concentrate on their highest-value tasks that contribute the most value to their life.

The starting point of overcoming your previous programming and eliminating the mental blocks to time management is for you to make a clear, unequivocal decision to become one of the most effective people you know. You must decide, right here and now, that you are going to become an expert in time management. Your aim should be to manage your time so well that people look up to you and use you as a role model for their own work habits.

Program Your Subconscious Mind

There are several mental techniques that effective people use to program their subconscious mind for peak performance.

1. Use Positive Self-Talk

The first method that effective people use for programming their subconscious mind is positive self-talk, or the use of positive affirmations. Highly effective people use these commands that pass from their conscious mind to their subconscious mind. Affirmations are statements that you either say out loud or say to yourself with the emotion and enthusiasm that drives the words into your subconscious mind as new operating instructions. Here are some examples of affirmative commands that you can use to improve your time management skills.

Begin by repeating over and over to yourself, ‘‘I am excellent at time management! I am excellent at time management!’’ Any command repeated again and again in a spirit of faith, acceptance, and belief will eventually be accepted by your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind will then organize your words, actions, and feelings to be consistent with these new commands.

You can continually repeat, ‘‘I am always punctual for my appointments! I am always punctual for my appointments!’’ You can create your own mental commands, such as ‘‘I am well organized!’’ or ‘‘I concentrate easily on my highest payoff tasks!’’ My favorite time management affirmation is to repeat continually, ‘‘I use my time well. I use my time well. I use my time well.’’ Used consistently, positive affirmations will start to influence your external behaviors.

2. Visualize Yourself as Highly Efficient

The second technique that you can use to program your subconscious mind is visualization. Your subconscious mind is most immediately influenced by mental pictures. In self-image psychology, the person you see is the person you will be. Begin to see yourself as one of the most highly effective people you know. Recall and recreate memories and pictures of yourself when you were performing at your best. Think of a time when you were working efficiently and effectively and getting through an enormous amount of work. Play this picture of yourself over and over again on the screen of your mind.

In athletic training, this is called ‘‘mental rehearsal.’’ This requires practicing and rehearsing actions in your mind before you actually engage in the physical activity. The more relaxed you are when you visualize yourself performing at your best, the more rapidly this command is accepted by your subconscious mind and becomes a part of your thinking and behavior later on.

The method is simple. First, sit or lie in a quiet place where you can be completely alone in the silence. Then imagine yourself going through an important upcoming experience, such as a meeting, a presentation, a negotiation, or even a date. As you sit or lie completely relaxed, create a picture of the coming event and see it unfolding perfectly in every respect. See yourself as calm, positive, happy, and in complete control. See the other people doing and saying exactly what you would want them to do if the situation was perfect. Then, breathe deeply, relax, and just let it go, as if you had sent off an order and the delivery is guaranteed, exactly as you pictured it. The best time to practice mental rehearsal is at night in bed, just before you fall asleep. The last thing you should do before you doze off is to imagine yourself performing at your best the following day. You will be amazed at how often the upcoming event or experience happens exactly as you visualized it.

In becoming excellent at time management, it’s important to practice mental rehearsal by continually seeing yourself as you would be if you were one of the best-organized and most effective people you could imagine. Eventually these pictures will ‘‘lock in.’’ When they do, you will find yourself easily and automatically using your time efficiently in everything you do.

3. Act the Part

The third mental technique you can use to program your subconscious mind for efficiency and effectiveness is to act the part of a highly effective person. Imagine that you have been selected for a role in a movie or stage play. In this role, you are to act the part of a person who is extremely well organized in every respect.

As you go through your daily life, imagine you are an actor who is playing this part, who is already very good at time management. Act as if you are already using your time efficiently and well.

Pretend that you are an expert in personal efficiency. Fake it until you make it. When you pretend that you are an excellent time manager, eventually your actions, which are under your direct control, will foster a mind-set, or the belief in your subconscious mind, that is consistent with it.

4. Benchmark Against the Best

The fourth mental technique you can use for becoming a highly effective person is called ‘‘modeling.’’ Modeling requires you to pattern yourself after someone you know who uses his time well.

Think of someone you admire for good time management skills. Use that person as your standard or your model. Imagine what he would do in any given situation, and then do it yourself.

Many of the most effective people in America reached their positions by modeling themselves in their earlier years after someone who was already extremely effective, someone they admired and respected for qualities they wanted to develop in themselves.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article on the four mental techniques that effective people use to program their subconscious mind! What other time management mental techniques do you use?