Here are some popular fallacies:
‘Elvis is in the building’ – ‘I’ll get back to you’ – “I have a time management problem’ …
Most functioning executives know very well how to manage time and are very good at it.
Look in their diaries and they will be a picture of efficiency, with time allocated neatly into the spaces available, the duration made concrete, the agenda for each event understood and they may even be looking forward to the encounters.
Managing all of this is not their problem. The problem is that they would like to do more in the finite time available.
It might also be that others want to share that time – and/or would prefer them to do something else – and/or have a disturbing suspician that they are wasting time!
Managing the allocation of priorities is the problem – and this requires new decisions.
If managing conflicting priorities sounds like the problem, then it has a more simple solution than trying to find a 26-hour time dimension.
The solution lies in the decisions they have made.
If they make better decisions about their time allocation, they will remove most time management issues. For this solution to be sustainable it will be useful to understand what ‘better’ might look like.
These three ways of thinking can help:
- Expand the sense of purpose to all activities – private and business
- Understand what a crucial contribution is to each
- Delegate
These simple actions, when applied to all time management decisions, will advance the individual’s thinking and improve the decisions they make.
P.S. Elvis has left the building
