Billions of pounds are estimated to be lost through poor time management at work. It is also one of the highest contributory factors to executive stress and ill health. No wonder Time Management courses are still the greatest selling product for training organisations.

Time management is partly about systems and partly about managing workload within those systems. The system may be out of the individual’s control, but they are in control of how they manage within it. On traditional time management courses too much emphasis is placed on tips and techniques “file the pile” “to do lists” etc.

But the key is understanding and using personal drivers to manage time effectively coupled with the self-discipline to overcome the downside of personal preferences for how time is spent.

Plus how you react under pressure is often the biggest impediment to managing time well. How many of us set out at the start of the day with a list of things we need to do and end up never looking at the list again and in fact doing whatever comes across our desk? Understanding why you behave in certain ways can help deal with this once and for all.

• Do you always agree to do everything for everyone?
  
• If you have a hundred things to do – do you find yourself doing none of them because you can’t chose where to start or doing all the small things and working through the night on the only thing that really mattered?
  
• Do you hate being disturbed and react badly to colleagues as a result?
  
• Must you be in control and so end up taking on too much?
  

Time management training should look at your preferred style under normal conditions and under stress. Maybe you are a high CONTROLLING style who needs to control everything making it impossible to get everything done.. Maybe you are a high ADAPTING style and need to say yes to everything because what people think of you is most important.

The answers to what makes you tick and what may make one or more of those statements apply to you can be uncovered by the Lifo® method Time Management approach. If you don’t change your behaviour, the “To do” list will stay “undone”

Time Management Cameos
Here’s some examples from our recent clients:

The Lifo® method Controlling Style
How do you get someone who is highly resourceful and a speedy operator to slow down sufficiently to actually plan what they are going to do? It’s not the style that goes with their self-concept. Well first of all they have to know what benefit this new, alien behaviour will bring them: “sounds pretty boring and not at all the way to get things done”.

Telling them the theoretical benefits of planning is not enough. Neither is the urging of the far more planful boss. You have to hit them where it hurts: they need to understand that a style that doesn’t plan, runs the risk of not delivering to time, arriving late for appointments and appearing incompetent, and not getting others who are supplying services lined up to deliver to their deadline. This style is all about competency and delivery so planning can actually improve their chance of success.

The Lifo® method Conserving Style
“I hate it when my colleague who sits across the desk from me comes in, in the morning. I’ve already been at work for 45 minutes and she wants to chat when I am already immersed in my tasks. If I don’t reply she talks even more. What can I do to shut her up so that I can get on with my work, undisturbed?”.

Well – the answer was simple, really. Clearly the colleague needs some kind of human interaction to know everything is ok but our client would prefer complete isolation. So put “saying hello” on your list of things to do, do it and tick it off. Make it another task with a positive outcome for both of you.

The Lifo® method Adapting Style
And for the other colleague – notice that some people really like to be left alone and the most welcome response you can give them is a smile followed by silence.

And – incidentally if you want that planful boss to really like you – finish the tasks she sets you and deliver to time – introducing 3 other options at the last minute will not create a bosom buddy: she needs to know where she stands and that giving a task to you was not a risk.

The Lifo® method Supporting Style
“How can I not work to 9 o’clock at night getting stuff ready but still be responsive to the team I look after?” was a questions asked by a busy team secretary recently. By having her boss and her husband complete surveys on her we together realised that she used a different style of time management at home than at work. She recognised that if she took more control of organising the team up front (despite their seniority) just as she did her husband and son, they would be prepared and not dashing around at the last minute, and she could go home on time.

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