Theory of Contraints for Personal Productivity/Dilemmas (Chapter 38 of Theory of Constraints Handbook)

This is an individual chapter of Theory of Constraints Handbook. The purposes of this chapter are to provide guidance in using the Evaporating Cloud (EC) technique to resolve chronic conflicts for both internal and external conflicts to achieve life’s goals; understanding the differences between necessary conditions and goals; establishing personal life goals and supporting objectives; understanding how to measure progress toward these supporting objectives and ultimately the goals; knowing how to record and analyze how you use your time; understanding how to use priority planning, capacity planning, priority control, and capacity control to achieve your supporting objectives; and knowing how to use Buffer Management (BM) to improve your execution effectiveness. We also provide an in-depth application of using the Thinking Processes (TP) to achieve your life goal with an example that lead to an Olympic gold medal. We feel that using the tools to plan and to control personal lives is fundamental to learning how to apply them in other environments.