Forever Skills

11Resource management

Whether it’s time, money, energy or people, all resources are finite, and managing them is critical to any success.

Kieran’s ten-year-old daughter Darcy understands resource management. Kieran learned this last Halloween.

Darcy shared some candy-based business wisdom with her mother through a conversation that began with the observation, ‘Mum, you know how companies charge people a small percentage for their services sometimes?’

Kieran responded, ‘Yes’, slightly concerned about where this might be heading.

‘I did that for Halloween with my friends,’ Darcy explained. ‘They agreed that they wouldn’t have been able to trick or treat in a street with so much candy if I had not invited them over. So I charged them a tax.’

Kieran, realising she was raising a Machiavellian, calmly inquired, ‘Oh really?’

Darcy reassured her mother, ‘Don’t worry, just a small fee, one piece each.’ Kieran was at once a proud mother (and just a little concerned).

What Darcy had realised at a very young age is that resources, assets and environments are limited and also that it is limitation that gives them value. This limitation and value must also be managed.

The same holds true in the authoring of a book, like this one, for instance. There is only so much time available for us to write and edit it and we, like most people, have more than one thing on. We are rarely in the same city, even the same country. This makes a capacity to manage our time and effort all the more valuable. ...