Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola
 

Time Tips: Get Your Boss into the Idea Habit

Here's one that you won't find in the typical time management seminar.

Question: Where do people waste the most time?

Answer: On the job.

How many times have you worked very hard on something, only to find your boss changes directions yet again and your work is wasted? This happens all too frequently in the typical workplace.

The problem isn't that bosses are deliberately wasting your time. The problem is they are not availing themselves of the right tools to avoid mismanaging their most important resources.

To avoid this problem, get your boss into the idea habit. You'll need to find a good time to approach your boss about this. Do so in a friendly manner, and plan out what you'll say. Here's a recommended procedure:

  • Tell your boss, "Your success is important to me. I think you are being asked to do too much, but I know how you can overcome the odds. Would you like to talk about that?"
  • If your boss isn't open to this, find a new boss. If your boss is open to this, explain, "I think we can both agree you've been forced to abandon some perfectly good plans and a lot of hard work. And has meant a big waste of your time and that of your team."
  • Then, tell your boss, "Did you know that Toyota has not laid off one person since 1950, even when their sales were down 37% during the Carter era oil embargo? There's a reason for that. And it's the same reason that they dominate the J.D. Powers Quality Survey while being the world's most efficient automobile producer. Do you want to know the reason?"
  • If your boss says no, find a different boss. If your boss says yes, say, "The power of ideas. They don't believe the boss should be alone in trying to solve problems. We need to explore how they do that and use the same concept so we can also get astounding results."
  • You might want to give your boss the book, "Ideas are Free." You can get it from http://www.mindconnection.com/ if you click the radio button and paste the text "Ideas are Free" (no quotes) into the search box.

If you follow this advice and your boss follows the Toyota example, you will see a huge drop in time wasted at work. You'll feel more job satisfaction, and your whole team will be less likely to be laid off. Surely, those rewards make the effort worth undertaking.

 

 
A great way many businesses are managing time is using software. There are many forms of time and attendance software which allows managers to track and monitor employees time usage.
 

More thoughts on time management

The phrase "time management" is an unfortunate language quirk. You can't really manage time. It just is. You can't gain time, create time, or even lose time. Time is what it is, regardless of what we do.

It would be better to say "time allocation" or "activity management" "time usage" or some other phraseology to indicate that it's not time itself you're managing but how you use the time that exists. But we'll use the common terminology here to avoid confusion.

Some things time management is not:

  • Being more efficient. Suppose you become very efficient at making buggy whips. Does this fact mean you are managing your time well?
  • Getting more done in a given amount of time. Getting more done of what? And to what degree of quality? If you rake the leaves on a lawn from one side to the other all day long, does that mean you are a good time manager?
  • Being able to juggle multiple priorities. Instead of juggling priorities, assign priorities. First tend to the urgent things, then the most important things.
  • Mastering multi-tasking. This concept conflicts with what we know about the human brain. If you buy into this self-defeating, time-wasting, quality-killing ideology, you might also be interested in practicing solo flight by flapping your arms frantically.
  • Working faster. No, this mode is how you make mistakes that you subsequently have to spend more time fixing.

Some things good time management involves:

  • Deciding what to do. This is trickier than it sounds. Which is why there are time management experts.
  • Deciding what not to do. This is even trickier than deciding what to do. Which is why there are time managers and why discipline is a huge, huge factor in accomplishing this.
  • Deciding what to do when, and in what order. In essence, prioritization.
  • Determining the scope, goals, and metrics for each activity you undertake. In this area, we the find most room for improvement. Precision here allows you to avoid waste on the one hand, and falling short on the other.
  • Planning out the work, task, project, or activity such that you determine the necessary steps to quality completion. That is, what must you do to meet the intended goal and quality metrics?
  • Identifying unnecessary steps. Get this right, and you can cut your wasted hours significantly.
  • Figuring out what resources to use. Not all resources applicable to a task are equal. Picking the right tool for the job saves time, improves quality, and makes life less stressful.

We've highlighted only some of the factors involved in good time management. We actually teach extreme time management, which is a methodology that allows you to make effective use of your time almost second nature. You don't need a complicated system. Our system puts many of the variables on autopilot, so you have more time to do what you need to do. Our system goes way beyond most other systems in results, yet is far simpler.

Contact us for a presentation to your organization: comments @ mindconnection.com (remove the spaces after pasting into your e-mail client's "to" box.