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Effects of Personality on Time Management

Different personality types

Personality can affect how you use your time, so it may help to do a personality assessment. The Myers-Briggs psychological personality measure is an established personality assessment tool. It measures psychological preferences in four areas: the source of your energy, how you gather information, how you make decisions, and how you deal with the outer world.

Personality preferences

Each preference manifests itself in people's behavior. The eight different preferences are as follows:

1. extraversion – Extraverts feel comfortable in public, find energy by being actively involved in numerous group activities, and like to make things happen and energize others. Extraverts tend to plan while in meetings, so they find portable planning devices useful.
2. introversion – Introverts find energy from working with ideas, images, memories, and internal reactions. They're energized by their internal world and prefer working alone or in small groups. They tend to take time to reflect before taking any action.
3. sensing – People whose preference is for sensing pay attention to what they can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste. Physical data and facts are how they gather information. They wouldn't trust hunches that seem to come out of nowhere, but instead look for facts and details.
4. intuition – People who gather information by intuition tend to focus on patterns and impressions inferred from their experiences. They prefer to theorize first rather than learning through a hands-on approach. Intuitives also tend to remember their experiences more as impressions than as detailed events.
5. thinking – When making decisions, people whose preference is for thinking try to base their decisions on principles, facts, and rules rather than on the specific contexts in which they're making the decisions. Thinkers weigh up pros and cons and then try to be logical and consistent in how they use that information to make decisions.
6. feeling – People who prefer to make decisions using feeling as a guide rely on values rather than facts and principles. They weigh the views and needs of the people involved in the specific context of any situation. Feelers try to establish or maintain harmony and do so by considering the points of view of those involved. They often appear caring and tactful.
7. judging – Judgers are people who like to reach clear decisions as quickly as possible. They are task-oriented. And they often feel a need for structure and organization when dealing with the external world. Others may interpret this as being too rigid or controlling. Judgers prefer to have a plan in place and to keep things in order. They may feel a strong urge to bring life under control.
8. perceiving – Perceivers relate to the external world by trying to understand and adapt to it moment by moment. They prefer not to reach final decisions; they remain open to new information. As a result, they may be perceived as indecisive. These people feel most comfortable when being flexible and spontaneous. They're more motivated by the desire to understand and respond to the world than by the urge to organize it.

Personality and time management

Your personality type can help you determine your strengths and weaknesses in terms of time management. The most important personality dimension in this regard is your preference as an extravert or introvert. However, your preferences as a sensor or intuitive, thinker or feeler, and judger or perceiver also impact how you use your time. Each of the personality preferences has strengths and weaknesses:

• Introverts work best when not distracted. They stay focused on a single task for lengthy periods. However, they might overlook new developments.
• Extroverts like to plan and come up with ideas as part of a group. They enjoy keeping busy and working on several projects at once and thrive on plenty of stimulation. However, they may have a tendency to jump too quickly into a task, not planning or thinking it over enough.
• People who prefer sensing to intuition like working with schedules and deadlines, however, they may focus too much on present tasks and therefore fail to plan thoroughly.
• Intuitives are good at seeing the big picture; however their tendency to remember impressions rather than details means they may not plan in enough detail. They think more about new possibilities and ideas and therefore may forget to consider how to make them a reality. This may mean they struggle with deadlines.
• Those with a preference for thinking tend to emphasize being objective and consistent. They may like to break things down into their logical parts, and may be capable of creating very efficient time management systems based on a rational, objective assessment of their goals.
• People with a preference for feeling over thinking like to make decisions based on how they affect others and themselves. Because their focus is on other people, they may be easily distracted if they don't have a time management plan.
• People with a personality that includes a preference for judging may have a natural flair for time management because planning is important to them. They prefer a more structured approach and often find planning on paper useful. They tend to make lists of things to do and plan their work to avoid having to rush. However, they may ignore new information because they're too focused on their goals.
• Those with a preference for perceiving may find too much planning annoying and restrictive. These people value flexibility, enjoy mixing work and play, and feel motivated by approaching deadlines. They work in short bursts of energy, rather than at a steady pace. However, they may find that they stay open to new information for too long and therefore don't make decisions when they're needed.

Whatever combination of traits you have, you'll tend either toward over-managing your time or toward simply dealing with matters as they arise. If you like to control your time, you may need to become more flexible. And if you tend to favor spontaneity, you probably need to gain more control over your work schedule.

The Myers-Briggs test measures your preferences in terms of information gathering, decision making, energy source, and dealing with the outside world to determine your personality type and how you are likely to behave. These personality traits affect how you manage your time. Each personality type has certain strengths and weaknesses. So knowing more about yourself can help you to determine how to improve your time management skills.