Okay, how on earth do some single mothers juggle a full time job, two children and make it to PTA meetings? Or some senior directors from top blue chip companies who find time to play golf on weekends and manage to be attentive fathers; while others struggle with their time and end up with stress ulcers?
The answer is rather simple actually and it lies in good time management. Companies around the world are hiring executive coaches and time management experts to enhance the performance of their staff and improve efficiency, thus minimising stress and improving overall productivity. Hummm, I wonder, do such gurus possess a magic pill that they hand out in their seminars that suddenly creates extra time? Or ancient alchemical formulas they reveal to the selected few? Perhaps a magic key to other dimensions of time? No, nothing as dramatic as that.
The cornerstone of good time management is actually about being honest with yourself to identify your time thieves. Time thieves can shroud themselves as pointless texts, emails, meetings, small talk around the coffee machine, catching up on childish gossip, surfing the net and even rifling through your desk. In fact, some experts claim that on average we actually work less than three hours a day, and the rest of the time we waste on the above mentioned thieves. Secondly, dedicating the first few valuable minutes of our morning to identifying our high priority tasks and low priority tasks can be invaluable as it will help organise our time thus increase our efficiency.
I have worked with some very high powered executives who have wasted precious time on small/low value tasks and later realised that these tasks can be like rabbits that multiply and derail your focus. It is paramount that you identify what is worth your time, and focus on tasks of higher priority to cover more ground during your working day. Even needless perfectionism can be the biggest time waster.
Since time management can be a broad subject to distil into this newsletter, let me leave four important points that Brian Tracy talks about in his personal success program.
The 4 Rules Of Time:
1- Time is perishable. It can’t be saved, only spent. So it’s vital that you decide what is of low value and what is of high at the start of your day in order to use your time wisely.
2- Time is indispensable. There is a 10/ 90 rule that makes a lot of sense. If you spend 10% of your day intelligently planning how to achieve your goals for the day, you end up saving 90% of the time you would have wasted otherwise.
3- Time is irreplaceable. Time is all that matters in relationships, and how we express our love to our loved ones is by spending time with them.
Q: How do children spell love?
A: T I M E
4- Time is essential to achieving your goals. By identifying your goals at the start of your day, or week, you’ll have a clearer picture of how to use your time to get things done and have enough time to play. Working efficiently and productively is not always about manpower, but mind-power. In other words, working smart, and not just working hard.
Let me finish off with a final point that is food for thought. I recently had a client who wanted to finish his MBA without seeing a drop in the quality of his performance at work. Within a 90 minute session, we identified his time wasters, eliminated them and suddenly created ample enough study time that was spent on completing his MBA. His time wasters were, frequent after work drinking, excessive socialising and freezing in front of the TV whenever there was a football match or anything else that piqued his interest and distracted him from getting on with the task in hand.
There is plenty of time to do so much more, it’s simply about identifying what will serve you in the short and long term and what will harm you.
Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.
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