We Don’t Need to Manage our Time Better

One of the most commonly shared and seriously flawed beliefs is that simply spending time on something will generate positive results. If you buy into this premise, then you’re probably rushed much of the time.

On the other hand, high-quality, focused energy is essential to achieving results. Just putting in hours is NOT the point.

We don’t need to manage our time better; we need to manage our energy and focus. And to do that, we need to pay attention to something else… something much more fundamental: the stories we tell ourselves.

As Performance Psychologist Jim Loehr writes in The Power of Story (Free Press, 2007), “…the key to almost all of our problems, more fundamental even than poor energy management, is faulty storytelling, because it’s storytelling that drives the way we gather and spend our energy.”

Think about the last time you said, “I am exhausted.” I’ll bet you tell yourself a story about why you’re tired. You probably don’t even think about this story. But I’ll bet it contributes to why you are tired.

In other words, you may be justifying or blaming, or feeling sorry for yourself in some way.

I’m not saying you are wrong or lying. Bear with me here. What if you changed your story?

What if instead of looking at your reasons for being tired, you looked at yourself as a superhero, or a super athlete… and made up a different story? You can tell yourself whatever you want to make yourself feel differently.

Stories are the way we generate energy, and they are also the way we excuse ourselves from doing things we don’t think we should have to do.

The human brain is wired to make up stories, no matter what. It’s the way we make sense of our world, which can be complex, ambiguous, and abstract.  Unconsciously, we look for an explanation of why things happen to us.

As long as we are making up stories to explain our reality, we usually cast ourselves as the “good guy.” Sometimes that serves us well, but other times we’d be better off looking at what we could do better. Without casting ourselves as inadequate or deficient, our stories could inspire us to take action.

As authors of our own stories, as long as we are making things up, we may as well make our stories as inspiring as possible.

Strategies for planning a Year of Achievement and Success

Last week I was interviewed by Brad Simkins on his Blog Radio Talk Show. As we enter a New Year, I thought the topic is an appropriate choice to focus upon. So, here is a link to that recording.

Success comes to those people who can manage their time according to their priorities. It is due to the fact that they can finish doing important tasks at a certain period of time without rushing things and without becoming reckless. Thus, coming up with remarkable results is no surprise to them. Time is one of those things that you can never get back. Everyone starts the day with the same amount of time. We all measure time in the same way - minutes, hours, days, weeks and so on. Yet, some people seem to "spin their wheels" while others gain the traction required to accomplish their goals. Many of us set goals at the beginning of a New Year, at our annual performance reviews, or when something major happens, and we want to assess where we are and where we want to go. Yet sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we grind to a halt with these goals. Before we realize it, weeks and months have gone by - and we still haven't achieved the results we wanted. Why is this? After all, we all have the best intentions and the timing (New Year, new start) couldn't be better. The problem may lie in the fact that we place a huge amount of pressure on ourselves. With all the hype and the pressure, it's easy to fail. Learn instead how to set yourself up for success, during this interview. Use the approach that you will learn in this interview, to turn your vision and dreams into reality. And you can give yourself the best chance of successfully achieving your goals and your dreams!

Once again, you can click here to listen to this recording.

Click here to launch and listen to this MP3 recording of the interview

I'd love to hear your thoughts and would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Namaste!

We are what we repeatedly do

At the last week’s Time Strategies webinar, I made a recommendation to define your values, purpose, and goals in order to achieve what you need to accomplish in the time that you have in a given day.

There are relationship, career, personal interest, family and social demands… all screaming for attention in our lives. Each of us has the same amount of time available to us as we begin a new day. Twenty four hours to use or abuse as we see fit. There never seems to be enough.

Sometimes we accomplish a great deal, and time just seems to fly by when we notice the lateness of the hour. When we work at challenging and stimulating projects directly related to our goals, our achievement level skyrockets and time flies.

On other days, everything seems to be going in slow motion. When we are bored or doing something we don’t like, time drags and our productivity and our level of accomplishment drops. When we feel under the gun or out of control, time seems to go too fast. We feel out of control, stressed, unable to get done what we need to accomplish in the time allotted, and are continually behind schedule.

The quantity of time doesn’t really change. Only our perception changes and our perception is our reality. Since we cannot increase or manufacture more time, we must get more out of the time we have.

If most of us know how to manage our time and if we realize the value of becoming more effective at managing our time, why don’t we do a better job of it? We all know what we should do. Why don’t we just do it? For most of us, what is easy to say is more difficult to do. So what’s the solution? We must first look at the key factors that influence our behavior.

The first step in changing any habit is to identify the habit you want to change. Therefore, in order to change your time management habits, you must evaluate your present use of time by analyzing your attitudes and behavior in relation to outcomes. An accurate time analysis will help you to pinpoint who and what occupies your time. Look for time wasters and peak performance periods. Pinpoint precise behaviors that are incompatible with your goals.

Define the new habit that you wish to develop and be as specific as possible. Negative habits in our lives are destructive. Positive habits are uplifting and they help us achieve our goals. In order to build better habits, we must define precise behaviors for change and perform them at specific times. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

You will get more out of your time when you learn how to get more out of your life. After you determine what you want, what you value, what you believe, and where your priorities lie, determining how to spend a given day or hour becomes easy. In order to get more out of your time, know what you want and what you want to get out of it. That seems very simple and most people overlook the real purpose of their lives. They fail to define their values, purpose, and goals. They become so immersed in their daily activities that they fail to think about what they really like to do.

That brings us back to the webinar’s recommendation as to why it is so critical to define your values, purpose, and goals in order to achieve what you need to accomplish in the time that you have in a given day.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this...

Beat the Time Bandits

We all have time bandits at work and at home. These are the people and things that block us from reaching our goals and getting through our daily To-Do lists.

The usual suspects are in our lineup:

Low-To-No-Control Gang

The Low-To-No-Control Gang harbors time bandits that are outside our span of control, unless we make profound changes to the world we live and work in. At work, these miscreants might include inefficient and redundant procedures, unclear priorities, too many low-priority tasks, outdated and slow equipment, too much paperwork and red tape, too many special projects, and so on.

What can we do when cornered by members of the Low-To-No-Control Gang?

We can learn, look for alternatives and shortcuts, and deal with them as effectively and efficiently as possible. At work, our senior leaders should constantly work to reduce or eliminate the time bandits that are out of our control. Our job is to adapt to things we can’t control, and remove the time bandits that are directly and indirectly in our control.

Direct-Control Gang

The Direct-Control Gang exists inside our own hearts and heads. We have direct control over our own behavior, and we can be as big a time bandit to ourselves as anyone or anything else, although it might be harder for some of us to admit. Some of the gang members include procrastination, low assertiveness, low self-discipline, low motivation, poor listening, disorganization, trying to do too much, doing unimportant things, doing things wrong the first time, and so on.

Indirect-Control Gang

The Indirect-Control Gang is made up of all the people in our lives: coworkers, bosses, friends, family, acquaintances, and passersby. People are born to steal our day, just like puppies are born to chew up our favorite shoes. But whose fault is it?

It’s our fault, in both cases. We shouldn’t leave our shoes out because we know how puppies are. We can blame the puppy, yell at the puppy, chase the puppy around with a rolled up newspaper, but it’s ultimately our fault. And if other people chew up our day, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Here is our Top 5 list for how to fend off the time bandits in the Indirect-Control Gang:

1)     Don’t be a bandit yourself

Just as you don’t want others to ‘bandit’ you, you should always be aware of your own ‘bandit’ potential. If you are true to your own self-leadership goals, this will come naturally, because you will be committed to not wasting your time or anyone else’s.

2)     Communicate what’s important

To effectively lead yourself and others, you need to have clear priorities and clue people in to what they are. It’s easier to communicate your need to stay on task when people buy in to your cause and understand the significant demands of your effort.

For example, our bosses are notorious time bandits. Why? Because their bosses are also notorious time bandits to them. There are things to meet about, special projects that need people, and special functions to attend. The world isn’t perfect, and we all have things to do we don’t necessarily want to do or that don’t fit into our definition of ‘important.’ Can we say, ‘No, I’m not going to attend that meeting,’ or ‘No, I won’t do that special project’? Not usually. If you have issues with the type of tasks you are asked to do at work, or conflicting priorities that impact your performance, you should feel comfortable discussing them.

3)     Coach and delegate

You coach people when you move them from reliance on you to reliance on themselves. Instruct and encourage people to be effective self-leaders and they will draw less and less on your time. The time you invest now will serve you well down the road when you can delegate tasks to highly capable people who don’t need you looking over their shoulder.

4)     Expect respect

Living your purpose and achieving your top goals are important to you and the people around you. At work, acknowledge the importance of your purpose and expect bosses and coworkers to respect that purpose. You don’t have to be a killjoy to establish your expectation that people respect (if not value) your time as much as you.

If people do not respect your time — if they invite you to meetings that they didn’t prepare for, send you e-mails that don’t have a clear connection to you, stop by without a clear purpose — you have three choices: (1) let them steal your day, (2) get rid of them as best you can, (3) coach them on what you expect from your business interactions.

5)     Scan for the good stuff

We are constantly bombarded with information, new technology, and profound changes to how we view and function in the world. In fact, a conservative estimate by researchers suggests that business information is doubling every three years. To make sense of everything coming at us, we have to be selective about what gets our attention.

For example, we can be buried by e-mails, although they can be important and effective when used correctly. Here are some scanning-for-good-stuff tips for your e-mails and other communications you receive:

Let people know that you are overwhelmed with information and that you tend to block out messages that aren’t concise, simple, or clearly relevant to you. Tell them that they can expect the same courtesy from you.

Consider reading and responding to emails only at designated times during the day, such as at the beginning of the day, before lunch, and again before you leave work.

Consider using the ‘10-minute rule’ to work through easy e-mails; get the small and simple stuff out of the way in one 10-minute sitting rather than putting them off and allowing them to build up until you have a large, time-consuming chore ahead of you.

Consider creating an ‘Additional Action’ folder to separate important e-mails that you need to revisit later when you have more time.

Finally, try to handle an e-mail only once (or as few times as possible). Once you read it, take action. Dump it, respond to it, print it, forward it, whatever, and then move on.

To beat the time bandits that steal our day, we must recognize who and what they are and take the lead in putting them away.

"Learn to use ten minutes intelligently. It will pay you huge dividends." --William A. Irwin

PS:

Magic trick illustrating why using little pieces of paper as a planning system is not a good idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxJg1aKef5o&feature=related

Enjoy!

Power and Focus through Time Management

Achieving effective time management is not easy because changing a personal habit never is. The essence of effective time management means replacing less effective habits with better ones.

People generally have a fairly good understanding of basic time management techniques, and almost everyone knows how to plan and prioritize. Most people know they should be more organized. The problem is that very few of us always do what we know we should do. Your success does depend on a successful time management system. Think about some accomplished people you know. Do they do what they say they are going to do when they say they will do it? Do they keep their word? The answer is probably ‘yes.’ People who keep their word consistently create power and focus in their lives. Together, power and focus provide the ability to be more effective in shaping events and circumstances. Effectiveness, in turn, enhances our feeling of well being. The better we feel; the more successful we are.

The “Formula for Well Being©”demonstrates that before we can keep our word, we need to give our word. Giving our word creates the potential for us to keep our word, which in turn creates the power and focus to be more effective.

Achieving more power and focus through mastering the right time management techniques is a skill, a mindset, and a lifestyle and it can be adopted by anyone who …

§ Wants to feel more in control,

§ Wants to attain more out of life,

§ Wants to achieve success in business while enjoying the pleasures of a personal life,

§ And, wants to reduce stress and realize more life balance.

Define a time management habit that you wish to develop. Be as specific as possible.

Negative habits in our lives are destructive; positive ones provide focus and power. They help us achieve our goals. In order to rebuild habits, we must define precise behaviors for change. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” Your focus and power is dependent on your time management skills and behaviors. It is never too late to make a positive change, and a new year is upon us, so start today!

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Surya M Ganduri, PhD. PMP. is the founder and president of eMBC, Inc., a national firm specializing in strategic and executive leadership development processes that Help People Succeed in an Evolving World. His company is affiliated with Resource Associates Corporation, a network of 600+ associates that are dedicated to helping organizations and individuals manage strategic change, innovation, cultural transition, and goal achievement. Surya has over 26 years of business experience in management consulting, leadership development, executive coaching, process improvements, organizational development and youth leadership. Contact Surya at s6ganduri@eMBCinc.com. For more information visit www.eMBCinc.com or contact eMBC, Inc., directly at (630) 445-1321.