Hyrum W. Smith.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole A.
• Position: Includes related article on time-management consultancies - Interview with time-management author - Interview

Leading time-management author and lecturer Hyrum W. Smith says gaining control is having the courage to say "No" and to follow your governing values.

More than 15 million people worldwide use his day-planners and agendas to guide their hectic lives. In fact, in Michigan, a recent study found that one out of every 3.5 residents surveyed carries his distinctive, tinged binder.

An average 750,000 would-be organizers sign up for his training regime every year.

His company reported $546 million in 1998 fiscal revenue and has 12 million books in print, with an estimated 1.5 million sold each year. That list includes his own, The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management, and the works of co-founder and popular leadership guru Stephen R. Covey, author of the chart-topping The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That everyman's-guide-to-success sat on The New York Times best-seller list for more than 270 consecutive weeks.

The company is global time-management leader Franklin Covey Co., with offices in 33 countries.

The man who represents the Franklin half of the Salt Lake City-based Franklin Covey Co. is Hyrum W. Smith. He practices what he preaches.

Smith recently blocked out a suitable period at the start of his Utah business day to discuss with Alaska Business Monthly everything from the challenges of e-mail to his own guiding principles of time management. The conversation took exactly 21 minutes. Time well spent.

ABM: Do you feel that Americans right now have a firm grasp on their governing values? On their priorities?

SMITH: No. But they want to. There is a real surge, a real movement, to get back to what basically made this country a great country. And that's coming back to the value system. People start thinking, "What really matters?" "What's important here?" The central theme of our seminars is the acquisition and maintenance of inner peace. People ask, "What's that got to do with time management?" It has everything to do with time management. People want to be in control.

Black and Decker sells 340,000 quarter-inch drills every year. Nobody wants a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole.

What do people want when they buy a day-planner? Do they want that crummy binder with all those rings and all that paper? That's just the implementation device to help them get control of their lives.

ABM: Recently, I read that Americans have more disposable money and time than at any other period in our history. We have more...