The Heart of Time Management
Everything feels urgent to a person without priorities.
You master life when you master time management.
When everything is a priority, you run around with your hair on fire.
The heart of time management:
One simple question is the heart of time management. What is your priority today? The question takes several forms.
- What’s the one thing you must complete today?
- When this day is over, what will you be proud you did? (Think beyond day-to-day urgencies.)
- What commitment do you have that enables you to say no?
- Where will you focus your best time and energy today?
- What’s important today?
A new agenda item:
You can’t manage time until you know what’s important.
In weekly team meetings ask, “What are your priorities this week?” In one-on-ones ask, “What are your priorities?”
Meetings that focus on last week’s performance are half done. What are next week’s priorities?
When people list 10 or 15 priorities, they don’t have priorities.
When someone declares a priority, it’s permission for others to ask about it. How are you doing with your priorities this week?
Anything that displaces a priority is valued more than a priority. What would you say to someone who displaces meaningful work with low-impact activity?
Why time management takes courage:
It takes courage to say everything isn’t a priority today. I wonder if leaders are afraid to identify priorities because they have to do everything.
Priorities rank to-dos. Do you have courage to say most of the important things on your list aren’t a priority today?
Leaders who lack priorities carry to-dos forward for weeks. Anything on your to-do list that’s been there for a month or two needs to be erased. Forget about it.
A priority is something that best expresses mission, vision, and values today.
What makes time management so challenging?
How do you set priorities?
More practical suggestions:
Successful Time Management isn’t about Getting More Done
Multitasking Makes you Stupid: Single-Tasking is Smarter
20 Time Management Tips for Professionals
I struggle with erasing something that has been on my To Do list for weeks. Sometimes those are potential pet projects that could be important (though not urgent) if someone gave it some thought and work.
I hear you, John. Perhaps a separate round-to-it list would be useful. Write at the top of the page things to do when I get around to it. When you don’t have anything to do, take that list out and get around to it. Glad you jumped in today.
I like the idea of a “Get Round to It” list. And maybe add a column for who else could do it. Your pet project may be the opportunity someone else needs to grow.
OUCH! This one hit home, but I so appreciate it. “A priority is something that best expresses mission, vision, and values today.” Thank you for clearly defining that.
My pleasure, Rosanne. You can be sure that I kicked myself first.
Dan, so interesting that we both wrote about this important subject this week! Here’s what I wrote in my weekly leadership newsletter:
During this pandemic, leaders have been finding themselves under increasing pressure to be productive. So many leaders I know complain about back-to-back meetings. At the end of the work day, they are often exhausted. That is not a smart way to use work time.
People have been complaining about their poor time management habits for years. Consultants across the world have become wealthy from conducting time management seminars. During these seminars, the ideas sound great. But so often leaders go back to their office and get sucked into the same old time-teasing behaviors.
What’s really needed is a change in paradigms. Leaders who say “I didn’t have time to…” are missing the point. They need to change their verb from “have” to “make.” Leaders need to make time for their most important tasks and thinking. This requires expertise at a different skill: priority setting.
In order to set appropriate priorities about how to use their time, leaders must give themselves permission to plan beforehand and to reflect afterward. This applies to projects, meetings, decision-making and even attending conferences. Pause and reflect beforehand – what do I want to learn or achieve here? Pause and reflect afterward – what did I gain and how I can I use it going forward?
This point came to the fore for me this week during a coaching session with a smart and experienced leader. This leader holds all-staff meetings Tuesday mornings. For two years she has held her one-on-one meetings with each teammate during the day on Mondays. Her reasoning was that if she could gain insights and information from everyone the day before, she would be ready for a meaningful and productive Tuesday full staff meeting.
Once we explored her rationale and compared it to her reality, she realized that by cramming all her one-on-one meetings into Monday, she was indeed collecting much helpful information for herself, but she was not fulfilling her primary objective – to deepen her relationships with her teammates and to really listen for their wants and needs. She was too busy worrying about her schedule and the next meeting to give each teammates her undivided attention. She realized these one-on-one meetings were about her teammates, not just about her need to be on top of all relevant information.
Now she will spread out her one-on-ones throughout the week. By the close of the work week, she will still have all the information she needs to run a productive full team meeting the following Tuesday. AND she will have used her time wisely, making time to prepare well for each teammate meeting and making time to pause and reflect after each meeting.
Please remember – we cannot manage time. There is only a finite amount available to us. However, we can always strive to improve at managing ourselves more effectively within the time that we possess!
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Dan. I appreciate you and your timely insights.