Time management is an important skill but it can be a difficult one to support others in refining. The secret is to ditch the idea of managing time!
By Karen Meager and John McLachlan
Many people can feel intense pressure to follow exactly what others are doing and adhere to the tips and tricks hailed as the ‘best’ way to manage their time, such as making extensive lists or working quickly through tasks. However, this isn’t the most beneficial approach to time management. In fact, to coach others in how they choose to spend their time, it is much more beneficial to ditch the idea of ‘time management’ completely. You cannot manage time itself, only how you think of it and choose to use it, and by following these tips you can support others to allocate their time most efficiently for them.
The importance of individuality
Make it work
To effectively support others, always recognise the individuality of each person and adapt your approach to reflect this. Helping clients to work on their core values will help them to gain clarity on their priorities so they can allocate their time according to what they think is most important to them. When we can see that a specific task is congruent with our values, we’re more motivated to spend more time on it.
Discovering when they were really productive or in flow and other times when it all went wrong will help clients allocate their time towards areas in which they can excel and identify what requires increased attention for development. Encourage them to think about the distinguishing factors between successful and unsuccessful strategies; these can vary enormously from person to person.
Help them to find a holistic, personalised rhythm that integrates all areas of their life, rather than balancing them off. For example, they might be frustrated about not achieving all they want to at work, but sometimes the problem lies elsewhere. Lack of sleep, stress and worries or communication problems at home obviously all contribute to lack of productivity at work and will need to be addressed to make changes sustainable.
Fatal flaws
- Not adapting exercises to individual clients to find out what is important to them Some may prefer visual and practical exercises, such as tables and diagrams; others prefer live discussions. While in coaching, typically we avoid making direct suggestions, with time management it can help to offer potential options and/or previous success stories to give them choices.
Sometimes people really don’t know what to try and can learn and adapt other peoples’ strategies easily to help them discover their own style.
- Not being prepared to work on other issues Be mindful that any work on the seemingly simple topic of time management very often strays into other areas of work and life: relationships, confidence, self-esteem, issues with authority, lack of assertiveness, to name just a few. Diving into these areas too will often be more effective in the long-term than working on simple time management strategies.
Debunk time management myths
Fatal flaw
- Recommending multi-tasking
If someone is a leader with many different tasks that need completing, it might be tempting to suggest multi-tasking or rushing through tasks to tick them off. But this won’t help them to complete tasks efficiently or effectively. And it’s not actually possible to
multi-task.
Make it work
Working through each task in turn increases focus and clarity. Encourage individuals to place dedicated focus on one task, rather than splitting their brain capacity across lots of tasks at once. This will ensure tasks are completed to a higher standard and of course, time management isn’t about just completing tasks as quickly as possible but about doing them well.
Fatal flaw
- Assuming that however long someone spends thinking about something defines how important it is, and failing to address underlying obstacles
Make it work
Actually, when something is important and someone is sure about it, they’ll spend less time thinking about it. Instead, when an individual is procrastinating, help them to find out what’s holding them back. Is it fear? Do they need more information? Another opinion? Helping them work through this now will help them make similar decisions more efficiently in the future.
Help people establish their boundaries
Fatal flaw
- Not supporting clients to set boundaries and/or aiming too high too early
Recognising where boundaries can usefully be set and actually establishing these can be very hard for some people at first, particularly in high stakes relationships and for those with beliefs that they always need to say yes for people to like them.
Make it work
Support clients to identify where they draw their boundaries with others who ask for or take up their time. Are they a yes, no or maybe person? People who always say yes can greatly benefit from finding ways to say ‘maybe’ to buy them time to think it through, particularly as others could undervalue their contribution if they always say yes.
Those unpractised at saying no elegantly often damage relationships and their confidence because they initially do so clumsily. Instead they could say ‘Thank you for thinking of me. I am actually at full capacity so will have to say no on this occasion but I wish you all the best.’
Similarly, they might not be aware what their language and behaviour is communicating. Work with them to reflect on a past situation and whether they got intended consequences and on how to become more conscious about what they are telling others. Get them to practice first in low stakes situations until they feel more comfortable.
Sometimes people only use verbal communication to say yes or no so support them in thinking about the implications of their non-verbal actions; it’s an essential part of establishing time boundaries. Not responding verbally is in itself a way of communicating.
Saying no to others is hard enough, but when people are developing healthy boundaries they must also learn to respect others’ time and boundaries as well as being able to handle being told no. Remember to include this as part of your coaching sessions as otherwise, they risk damaging relationships, losing confidence or feeling rejected for coming forward.
Further reading
- K Meager and J McLachlan, Time Mastery: Banish Time Management Forever, Panoma, 2017
- S Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon and Schuster, 1989
- E Shakiba, Difficult People Made Easy, New Holland, 2016
- Karen Meager and John McLachlan set up Monkey Puzzle Training and Consulting to support leaders and teams in professional and personal growth through training, coaching and business strategy events.
- Read chapter one of their book, Time Mastery, here: http://bit.ly/2QCBWVN