Are you managing time, or is time managing you?
By NANCY PROFFITT, Certified Business Coach, Proffitt Management Solutions
Does your “to do” list seem to grow longer and longer? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, overworked or unappreciated ? Is your desk covered with tons of work to be done, projects to review and letters that require a response? How about all those emails! This applies to home as well as work.
If you frequently work hard all day and still get little accomplished, you need to get organized. If important matters are regularly pushed aside, so that you can put out fires or address a crisis; you need to get organized.
Effective time management will give you the focus to get more done … in less time and regain control to live a life that provides you with tangible and intangible rewards you desire and deserve.
The term “time management” is in itself an anomaly as we truly can not manage time, we can only manage ourselves. After all, there are always 24 hours in a day , 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute ... every single person gets the same amount of time each day. While the fact is each of us only has a certain number of days on earth and that number varies person to person, one fact does apply: some people get more out of just a few days, while others seem to spend a lifetime accomplishing little. How we manage ourselves within any given time limit is all a matter of attitudes, behaviors and goals.
Because most of what we do in any given day is by habit, our attitudes, which are habits of thought, have a lot to do with achieving our goals. Our behaviors are the vehicle for our attitudes. By developing a time conscious attitude we might have to adjust our behaviors to accomplish our goals, especially as it relates to managing time.
For instance, if your goal is to achieve outstanding success, but you devote minimal hours and average efforts to work, then your behavior is inconsistent with your goals. So it is not that there is not enough time, we just haven’t developed the right attitude and behaviors to gain the most from it.
Time, you see, has two dimensions: hours and energy. To be successful you must organize both. There is no secret to effective time management. Many techniques work and it doesn’t matter if you use a paper-based system or a PDA. What matters is not what system you use, but that you use a system.
You must learn to prioritize your activities and set meaningful goals. You must adapt a system that works for you, so YOU can achieve more in less time, therefore, having more discretionary time to enjoy the fruits of your labors.
In an effort to see where your time goes, play a little game and do a time analysis by writing down everything you do during a 24 hour period. Write the times down in 30 minute increments on the left hand side of a page from the time you get up until you go to sleep at night and then across the top of a page in separate columns, name each task you do daily. Be sure to name a column across the top of everything you regularly do including a column for “other”. Record your activities for 5 days. Recording exactly how you spend your time is an important discovery process. You may find that you have a very inaccurate and unclear understanding of just how you actually spend your time.
Yakking at the water cooler, junk emails, extended telephone calls (personal and business) and watching television instead of reading that book that will help you toward your goals, may all be examples of things that are not time focused and that is time we will NEVER get back. How many of these types of time wasters were on you own time analysis matrix? Once a moment passes, it is gone forever. How many moments do you have left? If during your time analysis you discovered 3 hours of wasted time a day (this is very probable!) , ask yourself, “Would I strike a match and burn three one hundred dollar bills a day?"
Your time is so valuable. To use it wisely, you must be organized and systematic in how you spend it. Good time management or more accurately, managing “you” within a time frame, can be accomplished by changing those negative behaviors and attitudes and knowing your goals and purpose in life. Just as knowledge is not power unless you do something with that knowledge, time is not manageable unless you have systematic way of managing yourself in time to reach the goals you desire.
Nancy Proffitt, MBA, Certified Business Coach is the president of Proffitt Management Solutions and Proffitt Management Leadership Institute, an internationally recognized Leadership coaching firm dedicated to unleashing the full potential of individuals and organizations. She may be reached at 561-682-6060 or email: Nancy@proffittmanagement.com . Visit her website at www.proffittmanagement.com
