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Carol Kaufman-Scarborough: Rutgers University, Camden, New Jersey, USA, and
Jay D. Lindquist: Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors acknowledge the intellectual contributions of Dr Paul M. Lane, of Grand Valley State University, in the initial development and testing of the Polychronic Attitude Index. The first author also thanks Suzanne Krivanek for data coding and database management, and Gagandeep Singh for tireless literature searching and summarization.
Introduction
Students of time management have attempted to analyze and understand the time use of those persons who want to become more efficient on the job, in their home lives, and in the other activities that they undertake. Through the years, some sets of common precepts have emerged. These include the need for prioritization, the creation and use of lists, and the assigning of activities to particular time slots on an individual's calendar (see, for example, Bond and Feather, 1988; Macan, 1994; Macan et al., 1990). Such approaches are based on the assumptions that activities can be arrayed longitudinally and completed in manageable bits, allowing a person to work through the obligations of the day to achieve their desired goals.
The present study attempts to extend prior investigations by examining the relationship between traditional time management behaviors and the concept of polychronicity. Polychronicity has been defined as the extent to which people prefer to engage in two or more tasks or events simultaneously (Bluedorn et al., 1992; Kaufman et al., 1991a; Slocombe and Bluedorn, 1999). Thus, polychronic behavior appears at first glance not to fit the more traditional step-by-step, one-thing-at-a-time suggestions which characterize efficient time management. Rather than prioritizing and ordering activities one by one, polychronic time use is characterized by overlaps of activities, interruptions, and the dovetailing of tasks.
In the present paper, it is proposed that persons who are comfortable with polychronic time use, termed "polychrons", are more likely to be able to manage and to be comfortable with interruptions and activity switches than their monochronic peers. Further, they are more likely to indicate that such polychronic behaviors are perceived to contribute positively toward reaching daily goals. Persons who are monochronic, termed "monochrons", prefer to concentrate on one activity at a time; they are expected to lean more toward strict planning, time allocation, and prioritizing...