Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Success Habits and Why we do Time Management

I am always perplexed when I hear someone say they are not interested in Time Management. The reasons they cite usually has to do with the fact that they do not want to work that hard and are more interest in having fun, relaxing, or having leisure.

If this is truly the case, then they have missed the whole point in Time Management. Many of the efficiency tips (and management has more to do with efficiency than anything) allow people to be more productive and get more done.

It seems to me if someone were interested in spending more time on leisure, relaxing or anything else, they would want to get through their other tasks and chores in an efficient manner so they can go on about relaxing better.

I know I tend to be fairly driven and perhaps that sends the wrong message to people who think that if they start some time management tricks they will just start working too hard.

Time management is not about working harder, it’s all about working smarter so you can do what you actually want to do.

My success habits of the day are:

1. Do the worst thing first thing. I choose to do this both first thing in the morning and first thing after lunch. This has been the best thing for getting items off my plate, breaking through procrastination and not having the stress of having things hang over me.

2. Know you goals and link the action items to your goals. If something is not important enough to be on your goals, should you really be doing it?

3. Leave the room a little bit neater than you left it. I don't spending a lot of time cleaning out my car or any other room for that matter and the simple habit of leaving the room a little neater than I came into it allows me to keep the clutter and the paper a little bit neater (of course sometimes I have to go in and out of a room a few times to get things neat).

4. Be healthy. In reality this one is because a lot of time management has to do with energy, not so much time and being healthy gives you energy. If you are not healthy it sure creates a huge elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with first.

Good luck on your time management.


At 9:32 AM, Anonymous Elizabeth Saunders-Time Coach said...

Great point! I completely agree that being efficient and focused when you are working is the key to being able to maximize your non-work time.

I talk with my time coaching clients, including overwhelmed business owners and stressed out employees, about how the key to being fully present and enjoying the moment is knowing what's on your plate and exactly when you will complete it.

At 11:44 AM, Anonymous Clay Ward said...

There was a sign on the ceramics studio I used to work in that read "If you don't have time to clean up then you don't have time to work."

The point is that it doesn't help anyone's business to start something and leave it dangling. That's actually worse than doing nothing because it can take more work to reboot the process and remind yourself (or worse, your teammates) where you were in the process.

So if you don't have time to finish an outline, or save a draft in the right folder... then do nothing! And have some fun for a change.

At 5:09 PM, Anonymous Torie Russell said...

Thanks for this post. Managing our time and knowing when to do and when to delegate is key to success. There is also something about being fully present to whatever it is that you are doing. The more present we are to what we are doing as we are doing it, the less distraction and wasted energy there is in our work, and also it seems,more satisfaction. There is a really interesting speech by Werner Erhard about why we as human beings do what we do, and how knowing that is important to managing business performance Why We Do What We Do: A New Model Providing Actionable Access to the Source of Performance


Post a Comment

<< Home