Time

Management


 










"Why Time Management Seminars Don't Work - And What Does,"
Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach

Time Management Seminars don't work, and here's why: They
are treating the symptom and not the cause.

They're based on two assumptions that no longer work. The
first is that you don't know how to manage your time.

Let's say you're asked to attend a Time Management seminar
at work. You'll be given a method that's designed to apply
to as many people as possible, so it may have little to do
with your type of job. Some jobs are routine, and we do the
same thing every day. Other jobs feature constant variety

Coaching is the better method, because it's individualized,
and if it's a good coach, they'll be asking you lots of
questions.

I would ask you things like this:

1. When DO you manage your time well?
2. When you are in charge of the project, how do you manage
your time?
3. If you had 8 hours of uninterrupted time - no phone, no
meetings, no knocks on the door - how do you think you would
manage your time?
4. When you are planning a vacation you've waited for all
year, how good are you at managing your time and being
organized?
5. How would you tell someone else to manage their time?

Barring such things as ADHD, you'd probably discover that
you know how to manage your time under certain
circumstances, so it's fallacy that you don't know how to
manage your time, and a group seminar is particularly
unuseful to you because it will never bring this point to
the surface. Nor will it tell you how to apply the
strengths you have to the situations where your time becomes
"unmanageable." Bear in mind that your time becomes
unmanageable not because of lack of skills on your part,
which brings us to the second fallacy.

The second fallacy is that you can be taught to manage your
time because it's rests on the false assumption that your
time can be managed.

In today's world where change, communication and information
are accelerated, and responsibilities are exponential, there
is no one "way" to manage time. You can only manage yourself
in reference to your time.

The skills you will need to rely on are Emotional
Intelligence competencies, and they will cure the problem,
not treat the symptom.

Emotional Intelligence covers such competencies as
flexibility, creativity, intuition and resilience. This
means that what you are building is not "time management
skills", but the ability to function amidst chaos,
inadequate data, imperfect human beings, uncertainty and
pressure.

We are as much trapped by technology and people as we are
assisted by them. On a good day, your computer, cell phone,
airline, team plan, and project team will make things run
more smoothly than in the past, and you will accomplish your
goals for the day.

But on a bad day, your calendar will be of no use if your
server goes down, and neither will your email. Even though
you keep a meticulous day planner, you'll have to rearrange
your schedule if your cell phone battery goes dead in the
middle of a client call. If your airplane is late arriving,
it won't matter how many people you called to the meeting,
or how carefully you planned the details. And if Harry has
to have emergency surgery and be out of work for two weeks,
he won't be fulfilling his part of the project, even if he's
prepared, knows how to do it and highly motivated and you
are left to cope.

What will help you in these situations is:
· Resilience - being able to bounce when confronted with
obstacles;
· Flexiblity - being able to relax when things change, so
you can continue to think and function at top speed;
· Creativity - so you can come up with a Plan B; and
· Intuition - which can give you the an early-alert system
to warn you when things are starting to fall apart, and how
best to get them back together again.

When you have these competencies developed, your personal
power increases greatly. You will no longer panic (anger or
fear) when things go wrong, or change. You will be able to
move past blame, and start fixing the situation.

And with highly developed Emotional Intelligence competencies,
you will be able to access much more help from those around
you because of your empathy, communication and interpersonal
skills.

We can no more control time than we can control emotions.
The best we can hope to do is manage our emotions and those
of others, and manage ourselves and others when our
well-laid plans go astray. This is Emotional Intelligence.

Next time you think about a Time Management Seminar, think
about an Emotional Intelligence Seminar or Emotional
Intelligence coaching instead. And ask your manager or
employer for this learning tool. It will get to the root of the
problem, and since it's broadly applicable, it will help with
a lot more than just time management.


©Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology, The EQ CoachT,
http://www.susandunn.cc  . Susan is the author of "Live Your
Life with Emotional Intelligence." We offer customized
coaching programs, EQ coaching is included FREE with every
one-month coaching contract.


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