How many times have you said those famous last words, only to still be working hours later?

As author Douglas Adams once wrote, "Time is an illusion; lunchtime, doubly so." The fact is, estimating how long something will take is not an easy skill. Particularly when working on our own, estimating time is surprisingly difficult.

This talk will focus on minimizing the illusion that something should only take ten minutes. We'll focus on techniques for managing time and designing schedules to make it easier to get things done when they need to be done, without all those last minute crises.

We will cover:

• How we perceive time and why we never seem to have enough of it.
• The 90 minute rule of productivity.
• Time-based vs. event-based schedules.
• Why the road to time mastery is paved with good intentions.
• Building a performance routine.

About Our Speaker -

Steve Balzac, "The Business Sensei," is a consultant and professional speaker. He is the president of 7 Steps Ahead, LLC, a consulting firm helping businesses get unstuck and transform problems into opportunities.

Steve has over twenty years of experience in the high tech industry and is the former Director of Operations for Silicon Genetics, in Redwood City, CA, where he was responsible for shipping their flagship product. Steve also led the development of numerous serious roleplaying simulations, including a Pandemic Flu simulation for the US National Capitol Region. He is a popular speaker on topics ranging from leadership, motivation, team building, interviewing skills, and sport performance to computer game design. He was a guest lecturer at MIT and WPI. His articles have appeared in a number of journals, including The Journal of Interactive Drama, The IBM Systems Journal, Mass High Tech, Lab Manager, Corp! Magazine, Performance & Profits (a publication of the American Management Association), Enterprise Management Quarterly, Talent Management Magazine, The CEO Refresher, The Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership, Analog SF/F, Black Belt Magazine, American Fencing and the Worcester Business Journal.

Steve produced several webinars through ExecSense and is a contributing author to Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values Through Play . Steve is the author of The 36-Hour Course in Organizational Development listed by Amazon.com as one of the top 100 books on organizational behavior. Steve's latest book, Organizational Psychology for Managers will be published by Springer in 2013. He is a frequent radio guest and is quoted in a variety of publications including the New York Times, Boston Business Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and IndustryWeek.

Steve is President of the Society of Professional Consultants (SPC), and is a former board member of the New England Society for Applied Psychology. No stranger to the challenges of achieving peak performance under competitive and stressful conditions, he is a fifth degree black belt in jujitsu and a former nationally ranked competitive fencer. He has published numerous articles on the application of sport psychology techniques to business.

Building effective development organizations, improving team morale, focus, and enthusiasm, developing effective communications between team members, reducing employee turnover, helping businesses identify and attain strategic targets, and applying sport psychology techniques to business have been some of his most successful projects.

Steve has bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science and engineering from MIT, and a master's degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, with a focus on motivation, performance, and group dynamics, from Capella University. He is an adjunct professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology and Management.