If I could turn back time! Lessons on time management
Does your life sometimes resemble those wise words of Cher?
Do you sometimes wish you could turn back time whilst deadlines seem to be whizzing by?
Our current world is one of constant change and ever-increasing pressure and there are many demands upon our time. Not just workplace priorities and deadlines, but also our busy lives at home: getting kit prepared for the upcoming school sports games, making sure we visit elderly relatives who feel lonely, keeping fit and volunteering within our communities… the list could go on.
There are many gizmos and gadgets, to help with this: not least our daily friends – Outlook, our smartphone and tablet, new apps etc. However, these are pointless, if we don’t create the right mindset for effective time management.
Ineffective time management has real costs
For our charities, wasting time through poor time management means that we are squandering our charity’s limited resources. The money used to pay us for these ineffective hours could be better-spent on our charity’s beneficiaries.
Poor time management also brings personal costs, such as: additional stress, less time at home with loved ones due to poorly-managed workloads and it also has an impact on personal well-being and relationships with family/ friends.
Despite what you may think, improving our time management is not about working harder – it’s about working smarter.
It means, making sure that we create a work-life balance so that we are no longer the last person leaving the workplace, trying to constantly catch up with ‘stuff’. It’s about identifying our ‘time-stealers’ and developing strategies to avoid or manage them.
Improving our time management is about learning how to prioritise the ‘big stuff’ rather than sweating over the ‘small stuff’ to paraphrase a certain US author. Attending our Improving Your Time Management course will give you an opportunity to ‘take time out’ and honestly reflect on how you use the time that is available to you.
We all have 24 hours in each day, but…
Are you using the hours available to you to the best effect?
Do you have a mindset about time management and working with others that’s setting you up to fail or succeed?
For example, are you so busy saying ‘yes’ to everyone else’s priorities that you aren’t focusing on what’s important to you?
- Do you procrastinate?
- Do you have unhelpful ‘rules’ that drive you to take on too much?
- Do you allow others to interrupt you constantly?
- Are you organised or disorganised?
- Do you fail to plan and prioritise effectively?
- Are you busy, busy, busy and yet not getting things done?
As these questions might suggest, ‘Improving Your Time Management’ gives you a chance to reflect on ways in which you may be enabling or disabling yourself in your approach to time management.
Remember: the only person that we can change in this world is ourselves – we can’t create more than 24 hours in a day.
