20 Jan Time management

How often do we feel overwhelmed because it seems that we don’t have enough time to do everything we have to do? How many times do we think that the day should have more than 24 hours?

This has happened to all of us and it has a lot to do with how we manage our time. If we let this oppressive situation go on for too long, it will end up causing us stress and unhappiness.

We ourselves are largely responsible for letting this happen because we allow people and things to waste our time; these are the so-called “time thieves”. It is estimated that they rob us of between 50% and 70% of our effective hours; in order to fight them the first step is identifying them.

Below you can find a list of some of the ones we have detected in our organization and which we are working on:

• Lack of personal organization. If we don’t organize ourselves and plan our work, we waste a lot of time deciding what to do and how to do it. Dedicating a few minutes each day to planning the following workday, making a list of tasks and establishing priorities among these can be of great help.
• Not delegating. If we are not able to delegate we end up doing jobs that other people can do just as well or even better than us. In order to delegate effectively it is essential to know the capacities and skills of the members of our team, as well as provide them with the necessary training, if needed.
• Bad communication. If communication is not good, a job may be done badly and consequently it may have to be redone or repeated. Transmitting needs clearly and listening attentively are key elements for good communication.
• Interruptions.Telephone calls, people who require our attention for various matters,… these in and of themselves make us waste time and also make us lose our concentration on what we were doing. In order to avoid interruptions the best solution is secluding oneself; we can do this in different ways: by turning off our mobile phone, informing that for a period of time we will not take any calls or see visitors, setting limits and learning to say no.
• E-mail and instant messages. Apart from distracting us they create the need to answer immediately and thus set aside what we were doing. To avoid this we can turn everything off when we need to concentrate, and plan several moments every day for checking messages and e-mail.

These are some of the “time thieves”; if we think about them we can find many more. Combatting them is not always easy; occasionally we will need techniques to help us and allow us to apply certain strategies. For this reason in Rieusset we have planned various training sessions on this subject in order to acquire the necessary tools for managing our time better. If we are able to achieve this on a professional level, we will improve our productivity and with it our job satisfaction, and on a personal level we will gain time for ourselves.

Lastly, I would like to leave you with a reflection that Alberto Pena, Productivity and Personal Management coach, has made on this subject: “Time thieves don’t rob you of your time but rather they separate you from those thing you really want to achieve; each time you fall prey to them you get further away from your goals.”