Need More Time?

Time to think and innovate, time for yourself, your family and your business. Avoid fixing symptoms. Learn how to identify and eliminate those time thieving tasks and processes.

This is probably the most written about subject and I must admit that I have personally tried a dozen or more ways to free up my time so that I can do more of my activities. Somehow the system seems to be able to push back and take back the time with yet another disaster, emergency or deadline shift.

moretimeAfter years of struggle I have finally realised that there are some fundamental changes I had to make before my time truly became my own again.

The very first thing I had to get to grips with was my human ability to procrastinate or as my colleagues and I fondly call it “wabbing” – work avoidance behaviour.

While we all need some down-time – it is not really down-time when you have a list of outstanding tasks without a decent understanding of the time needed to complete the tasks. Managing lists is not the answer, project management is a compromise and any computerised system (including my inbox) is merely an outsourcing of responsibility for my time. I needed to do something differently to claim back my time.

I found the answer in the most bizarre place – proper organisation of everything and proper understanding of the problem, not only the symptom. No, not OCD behaviour, but close. As I got better at organising the different levels of my organisation and my private and social life, I started having more free time to understand the problems and not just try and fix the immediate symptoms. This time allowed me to improve my systems for managing and organising things and I had even more free time.

There are many ways to optimise your time and I don’t think there is a one-size fits all but I can definitely help you discover your peak performance time, peak performance tasks and elimination or automation of repetitive tasks. This will go a long way to helping you develop you own perfect ‘5-minute-work-year’ (to coin a phrase). I can’t manage my business and life in 4 hours or 5 minutes or 2 weeks but I can make large enough gaps of free time to enjoy any way I want. The more I make these gaps the more effective and efficient I become.

If you have a favourite time management tool or method but you are still struggling to free up time, join me on a year-long coaching and mentoring journey where we will explore all the facets of your leadership style, your organisational effectiveness and problem solving abilities and then reapply your tools to free up time. You might just ditch that time saver for a time creator.