The popular but scarce resource

Time is often a scarce commodity in businesses. If we just had more hours in the day, we could achieve so much more, grow our businesses faster, see more customers, create more opportunities, and design more products and so on. Some people respond to this pressure by working longer hours to get things done, but that approach reaches some natural limitations eventually.

As coaches we work with change and development, on a personal, team or organisational level. Usually these will demand more time of the leader and business owner on top of business as usual activities. “Finding time” is therefore often one of the aspects we will need to help our clients with. Out of our 14 standard leadership and management training courses “Prioritisation and Time Management” is also the most popular 1-day course we run.

The truths about time

However, we need to recognise some fundamental truths about time:

• Everyone gets exactly 24 hour a day. No more. No less!
• Time can’t be owned, borrowed or saved!

So, the reality is that you can’t find more time!

Is it therefore about managing time better?

The “Time Management” misnomer

Time management is not new. Time management approaches and models have gone through a number of waves.

The first wave was characterised by notes and check lists.

The second wave was characterised by calendars and appointment books.

The third wave introduced the important idea of prioritisation and comparing the relative value of activities based on their relationship to goals and targets. It introduced the concept of daily planning and specific plans to achieve the goals.

While the third wave of time management thinking made a significant advance, it appears for many people to be too scheduled, too restrictive.

It is now being recognised that “time management” is probably a misnomer – the challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.

Time management is about your choices and your responses to events around you.

Effectiveness

The bottom-line is that you have to take control. It starts with a commitment to change. It isn’t easy; there are often many habits that will need to change. Your understanding and mind-set around what you do with your time may have to change quite fundamentally.

The question you need to ask yourself is: How do I become more effective in the use of my time, so the hours I work, the man-power resources I have available, are used effectively on what is important to create the results I am aiming for?

This is a rather long convoluted question, but within it lies a number of the critical aspects you need to address to become effective. You need to consider questions such as:

1. What results am I aiming for?

2. How much of my time do I spend on activities that will get me closer to the results I am aiming for?

3. What is important to me and what isn’t?

4. What do I base my priorities on, and to what extend are these aligned with what is important?

5. Who is control of my time? What is driven by others and their demands on me, and how much of my time am I in control of?

6. How effective am I with the time I spend on activities?

I hope this has given you food for thought and challenged your thinking somewhat. We will over the coming year share more tools and thinking that can help you “find more time” – or to be more accurate – help you become “more effective”.

Please share your thoughts on the above. Do you have any particular subjects or challenges you would like us to cover in future articles?