''What is time? How did the concept of time management arise? What is the relation of time management to life as a whole?" These are not easy questions to answer. Possibly for that reason they are ignored by most other books on time management. Let us not make that mistake. For the attempt to view time management in its historical perspective may yield some important insights. This chapter invites you to identify your assumptions about time management. How far are they your beliefs, consciously adopted and held? You may find that some of them are more or less unconscious assumptions, picked up from our common history and culture. For we inherit a tradition. It helps if we understand that tradition and build upon the foundations.