So many people struggle with time management dilemmas. For the month of October, we are focussing on TIME.
Unfortunately, we too often believe that when we gain control over our time we will accomplish more and be so much more successful in our careers.
Have you ever said the following or heard someone else say this: When I have control over my time, I’m more productive. Or If I could only control my time, then I’d finally get that thing done.
I (Christine) hate to be the bearer of bad news but, time management won’t solve all your problems! Nope it won’t.
Also, we cannot control time. It is an external aspect. Remember, we can only control the controllables and that is our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions.
Being obsessed with the need to control your time is actually turning you into a stressed-out zombie!
The point I want to make here is this: When it comes to managing our time, we are still being instructed to use an outdated traditional approach, that is a one-size-fits-all approach and really hasn’t worked for the majority of people or their organisations for many decades.
The more we learn about human beings the more we realise that we are driven by our psychology of behaviour, our thought processes, our mindset, and our emotions. This awareness of how we function best as a human BE-ing, highlights the fact that old Newtonian time management approaches fail to take into account the emotional, mental, and energetic factors that make us human.
When we fail to tap into our own energy times, question our own time beliefs, or become aware of how to be at our best to produce the goods, then we just blindly keep following the traditional time management processes. When will we recognise that these aren’t effective and cause increased stress and decreased productivity.
If your goal is only to produce outcomes then you must rely on willpower to push yourself to get a task done. We know that the more we push and force our efforts, the quicker our willpower diminishes and runs out.
The impact of lowering willpower is less productivity. Imagine the thoughts that you will say to yourself as your willpower is running low. You are wanting to control time. You are pushing yourself to get the job done and your mind and body is screaming NO, stop.
To motivate and inspire yourself to engage with and complete a task, it is more advantageous to understand WHY you are excited about the project and who or what will benefit from it. This is about focusing on Attention, NOT time.
This is known as Attention Management.
Attention Management is the art of focusing on getting things done for the right reasons, in the right places and at the right moment. Our attention is strongly linked to our interests and passions. When we are interested in something, see the bigger picture of how it connects to our internal drivers and passions, then we can inject a great deal of attention to it and our productivity levels increase immensely.
Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance. John Loehr
The secret to sustainable high productivity, is not controlling time or working harder, it is about managing our attention, mindset, emotions, and energy to focus on what truly lights us up.