Your approach to time management affects the way you work — and the way others work with you.
There’s one enemy hovering silently in your life. What’s that, you ask? Time! Watch people. They’re totally overwhelmed trying to control their work and personal schedules. Dominated by “Enemy Number One”, you can see them sulking and hear them huffing: “I have too much to do, and no time to do it!”
Do you live by the tick of your clock?
During a frenzied day, you may feel like reciting the punch line from one of my favorite cartoons: “I don’t have time to talk about this now. Can’t it wait until we’re dead?” Gripped in my own time management style and sighing, I quickly glance out my window at the blue skies with billowy clouds. And then, in an instant, I am back to work.
Understanding your approach to time management is one way to clarify how your time is being shuffled, misused, misunderstood, projected onto others and even under-appreciated. If you take the time to focus on what I call “real skills”, previously referred to by trainers as “soft” skills, such as communication styles, courageus leadership, reflecting or dealing with change, you can also increase your ability to discern how your peers manage their time. It can be “easy” if you listen and observe how human beings approach their work. It’s always the real skills (versus hard skills) that collide at work. People constantly say to me, “Sandra, I can do my work, but it’s the people!”
So learning to identify how your approach to time management is different from your peers usually surfaces if you review your internal judgments–how the other person doesn’t approach their work tasks in the same way you do. Learning the “real skills” are the most rewarding use of your time.
Regardless of your educational level, position in the organizational chart or personal family structure, learning how to give constructive feedback, how to communicate effectively or how to appreciate your’s (and others’) approach to time management offers an invaluable tool to diminish misunderstandings and increase compassion. In a few weeks, I will share how these time management preferences unconsciously collide at work, so set your clock.
I would love for you to share your courage comments by posting them below.
Sandra Ford Walston is known as The Courage Expert and innovator of StuckThinking™. She is a speaker, internationally published author of COURAGE, trainer and courage coach.
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