Time Management Expert, Event Speaker: Mark Lamendola
 

Time Tips: Prioritizing #2

Don't obsess over numbers. Some time management "experts" recommend so much regimentation that the very discipline that's supposed to save time actually wastes it.

When you make a schedule, you do so under certain assumptions. Many people tend to treat all time slots or activities equally, which is a huge mistake. Many of us do that during the schedule planning phase, and that's bad enough. Doing it when conditions change is just another way of wasting time.

Here's an example. I had slotted three hours for climbing at a climbing gym that's about a 30-minute drive from my home. I had other activities slotted for after that. I ended up extending my time by an additional two and a half hours--nearly doubling it. Why did I "blow my schedule" in this manner?

Well, I met some people I really liked and we climbed in a foursome. Two of them are far ahead of the third person and me in climbing ability, and they were helping us work on our own climbing skills. During that time, we ran into some other people who were just a hoot to be around. This made every minute I was there more valuable than I had anticipated.

Normally, this situation does not occur during a climbing session and sticking to that three-hour limit is thus normally good time management. But when there is such a thing as "making hay while the sun is shining."

Don't confine "time management" simple planning. It's also about managing the here and now.

 

 
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.