What is time management? Time and stress are two inversely proportional measures. The absence of the first corresponds to the abundance of the second. However, time did not increase or decrease forever. Thus, exactly how we organize ourselves within the available time can make a difference. Complaining about a short time and a lot of cases, of course, will not solve the problem, then?
It will be more strategic to understand how we can best use it by reducing waste and focusing on quality rather than quantity. The well-known phrase of the psychologist emphasizes how many people care about extending life, while they should take care of extending life. We repeat the same words, the same patterns, the same road, the same habits every day for the most part. Then we complain that the results are not changing. Of course, if we do not change the way, the landscape will always be the same!
As a trainer, I work with several professionals who suffer from this problem, lack of time. In the beginning, this seems like a cruel fate, which cannot be ignored due to the very nature of the activity performed. The accountant lives on time, an unexpected lawyer, a compliance consultant. Thus, this is what brings me back to the belief that they cannot do otherwise. Then we begin to trace the professional day and begin to detect variances here and there: inefficiency, repetitive actions, ineffective procedures, confusion, bad habits, lack of clear goals. During the day, their activities are more like those of a firefighter who puts out fires than the manager who manages activities.
The first step to regain control of the day is to realize how we approach work and days, the beliefs that accompany us, the habits that guide us. By making small changes every day, the goal of accurate improvement can benefit from more time and less stress by doing the same.
The time we have. The benefits of time management. We begin our journey through time with a certain and irrefutable fact: time is the same for everyone, but, after all, not everyone has the same time! Time is a limited resource: it takes 24 hours in one day, which equals 1440 minutes, and this applies to all of us. That is, we have exactly the same time in the day and week as all the most famous people. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that we have little time. The point is to see what we are doing during this time, how we use it, what actions, projects and how.
Moreover, not everyone has the same amount of time available in their life, because each life has its own duration, and then … the adventure is over. Therefore, it will be useful to take your life in your own hands and decide as soon as possible how to use it. Complaining, complaining, disappointing is not beneficial for anyone, not to mention us. Therefore, time can be said that this is the most democratic resource of all existing, it is the only thing that we all have in common in the same quantity, and quality is a decision that every person must make … or let others take it for us.
The statements “I have little time”, “it would take more time”, “the time is never enough”, which we all use, is a linguistic form that takes a way of thinking and focusing attention on time and not on activity. This seems obvious, but it is not. Since time is set, we can work on organization, programming, priorities, delegation, etc., but not on time. This leads to a change in the radical mentality: instead of filling the time with the actions that need to be performed, evaluate the time required for this activity, regardless of what we have, and then proceed with the decisive schedule. Otherwise, we will strive to use all the time that we have for each action, until something more urgent stops us.
Thus, time management affects not only business results, but also our self-esteem and well-being. Feeling at the end of the day, spending time, not deciding what was suggested, not going into the blender and moving from one problem to another, not having control over it, can only increase stress, dissatisfaction and ultimately it leads to wear and tear, until it becomes demotivated and reconciled with a life that we have not completely chosen and wished for.