Time Management – An Impossible Task?

There used to be a t-shirt slogan that read: “So numerous males … so little time.” Nowadays, a lot of ladies’s tee shirts would more aptly read “So many lists … so little time.”!!

If you’re common of the women I speak to, then much better time management remains in your “leading 5 things I need in my life”.

Somehow it seems elusive.

Possibly you have actually currently been on time management courses, and absolutely nothing’s really changed. You’ve attempted colour coding your diary, however it’s still filled with things you don’t really wish to be doing …

What’s the problem?

What time management experts often fail to point out …

If you’ve been beating yourself up about not being better at time management, there’s something you most likely require to hear:

(Regardless of a billion dollar “time management” industry) you can’t “manage time”.

No, honestly. You can’t.

Whether you measure it by the tick of a clock, or the beat of your heart, you can’t stop time, move it, save it, re-use it, or replenish it. Time can not be bought, obtained, handed out or rented back.

Attempting to manage something over which you have no control just provides frustration and feelings of failure. (On top of which you still ‘have not got time’ for relaxation, pleasure and individuals that matter.) Sound familiar?

Offer yourself a break– stop beating yourself up about the (totally normal) reality that you’re having a hard time to “handle your time efficiently”.

And let’s focus on what does work.

What Functions:

While “time management” courses encourage performance,

There is only one way to have time FOR the important things that matter. Which is to allocate time and attention TO the important things that matter.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? And, in fact, it is easy … simply not necessarily simple.

Especially if you discover it hard to state “No”. Or you have actually been in the routine of “multi-tasking your life away”. Or, you have actually purchased in to a concept of success that involves doing more, much faster and in less time.

So you invest your days striving to produce a ‘better life’ that probably you’re going to delight in eventually in the future.

If you put the important things that matter– your ‘life concerns’– at the heart of your agenda, you can enjoy that much better life now. Not at some point.

Because, no matter what you might think your priorities are, in truth you produce your priorities by how you spend your time and where you put your attention. Moment by minute, day by day.

So what are you making a top priority? That is, to what are you providing your time, energy and attention?

Action Point: Go back through your diary for the last 3 months. Envision you’re looking at the diary of a complete stranger. What would you say her concerns are?

How do these compare with what’s truly important to you?

The Time Aspect

As I discussed earlier, if the things that are essential to you are not in your diary on a regular basis, then you will have a hard time to find delight and meaning in your life.

The majority of individuals start with their to-do list and schedule their time accordingly. (And hope that there’s a long time left over for the important things that matter.)

This is how daily top priorities can become your life concerns.

The key here (as Stephen Covey points out) is not to prioritise your schedule, however to “schedule your priorities”.

Start with what is very important. (Rather than what’s immediate, and/or beeping the loudest.) Arrange it. This applies at work at well as in the house.

Action Point: Make a “happiness list” … What brings pleasure and implying to your life? Write it down. Then, for each of the items on your list, make a note of three particular things that you could do to experience some of that joy and significance.

Now get out your diary and schedule one or 2 of these activities a week for the next 6 weeks. (Leading tip– “Ring-fence” your time: Use pen and draw the line around the space in your diary.)

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