Harold Taylor

Harold Taylor: Profile

Born in Timmins Ontario Canada in 1934 Harold was the youngest of five boys. In the midst of the worst depression in history he soon learned that if you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth your only alternative was hard work. Working odd jobs he managed to save enough money to put himself through Ryerson University in Toronto. He graduated as an industrial chemist and entered the workforce as a quality control manager for a multi-national manufacturing company. (He also completed both a four-year evening certificate course in Management & Administration at the University of Toronto and a three-year diploma course in Ceramic Technology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario). How does this relate to time management? It doesn't. But sometimes our paths take strange turns.

Instilled with the North American work ethic, he started his own company in the late 1960s and was soon working 60, 70 and even 80 hour per week. Not only did this help put an end to his marriage while doing nothing for his business, it also landed him in the hospital getting blood transfusions for bleeding ulcers. Upon leaving the hospital, and feeling lucky to be alive, Harold began to pick up the pieces of a decidedly broken life. Becoming an entrepreneur meant you had to make certain sacrifices. But when those sacrifices are your family, your health, and life balance, something has to give.

So Harold embarked on a mission to learn everything there was to learn about time and life management including goal setting, personal organization and stress management. He attended every seminar, workshop and self-help program he could afford. He read almost every book on time management that had ever been written, applying the concepts to his own life. And sure enough after countless workshops and more than 700 books later, Harold not only became organized, balanced and productive, he became an expert in the process.

Now, his background was industrial chemistry, and the business he started was association management so you're probably still wondering how he became a time management trainer. Well, since all that he had learned, in effect, had saved his life, he felt obligated to share his new found knowledge with others. He began advertising "free" one-hour time management workshops to the local business community. He started by holding free time management seminars in the boardroom of his now successful association management company. Only a few people showed up to the first sessions but bit by bit they came in droves. It got to the point where there were so many people crammed into that boardroom to hear what this man had to say about his life, and the philosophy and strategies that had turned it around, that something had to be done to limit the numbers. So he started charging a modest fee, moved the workshops to the hotels in the area, and it soon grew into a business of its own. Within a couple of years it had even outgrown his other company of 20 years. He was now at the point where he was no longer in the association management business at all, he was a full-fledged time management expert.

Now, over the course of 30 years he has written 17 books, including the bestseller, Making Time Work for You. He has presented over 2000 workshops, speeches and keynotes on the topic of time and life management. He has personally developed over 50 time management products, including the popular Taylor Planner, which has sold in 38 countries around the world. His monthly Time Management Report was published for twenty-five years and he has had over 300 articles accepted for publication. In addition he writes two bi-weekly electronic reports in addition to a monthly report for a Mastermind Group. His ideas have appeared in a wide range of publications, including Reader's Digest, Chatelaine, Woman's Day, Canadian Banker, Flare, and Executive Magazine. A past director of the National Association of Professional Organizers, Harold Taylor received their Founder's Award in 1999 for outstanding contributions to the organizing profession. He received the CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation in 1987 from the National Speakers Association. In 1998 the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers inducted him into the Canadian Speaking Hall of Fame. And in 2001, he received the first Founder's Award from the Professional Organizers in Canada. The award has been named in his honor.

During his years as an entrepreneur, he was publisher and editor of four magazines, and received a Business Press Editor's Association award for outstanding editorial achievement in the Professional Development Series category for his Keys to Effective Management column. Since that time he has developed into one of the world's leading authority on time management, appearing over fifty times on radio and TV and constantly being interviewed by the media. The book, The Seven Strategies of Master Negotiators, by Dr. Brad McRae (published in 2002 by McGraw-Hill Ryerson) claims "Harold Taylor is recognized to be the expert on time management in both Canada and the United States."

As a time management consultant, Harold has presented training programs in Mexico, England, Holland and New Zealand as well as in the United States and Canada. He has conducted training programs for such companies as Procter & Gamble, Kelloggs, Ford Electronics, IBM Canada, Coca Cola, Caterpillar, Campbell Soup, 3M, Merck Frosst, Duracell, Norvartis and Philips Electronics.

Not bad for a poor lad from a small mining town in Northern Canada. It just goes to show that getting organized and managing your time can literally change your life - in more ways than one.