There’s No Such Thing As Time Management...But Your Schedule's Another Story!
Posted: Tuesday, August 29, 2006
by Dan Goldberg
Dan Goldberg Consulting, L.L.C.
I would venture to say that many of you have spent much of you business life wishing for
better time management skills. Well, I have bad news. No matter what you do, time is going to keep on moving, second-by-second, and day-by-day. You cannot stop it or manage it. Time is in control…not you.
However, controlling your schedule is a totally different story. You have complete dominance over your schedule. It will be molded by you and will be at your mercy. First you have to realize that moaning and groaning over the lack of time to do this or that is no one’s fault but your own.
A wise man once told me, “He (or she) who is always short of time, is always short on planning." That sums it up. Planning will always get you through seemingly tough scheduling.
Good schedule management skills go beyond the obvious benefits such as less stress, making it to appointments on time and finishing projects before their deadlines. When you manifest proficiencies in schedule management you teach others that it is possible to control the franticness that often accompanies poor planning.
If you are a corporate executive or business owner, it is imperative to understand that your employees take their cues from you. If you are always late, what kind of example are you setting? If you procrastinate, you leave the door open for your teammates to do the same. Successful strategic management is extremely difficult without successful schedule management.
So…how do you master the ability to control your schedule?
First you must recognize that the way you currently manage you schedule (or lack there of) has been shaped by habit. Change your habits and you change the way you handle your schedule. One way to get a true picture of how you deal with your schedule, and what habits you have formed, is to chart your time. Chart your days over the course of a week. Break each day into half hour or hour segments and list what functions you performed during those periods. Start your charting when you get up and end it when you go to bed.
At the end of the week you will have a clear picture of the way you deal with your schedule. You will be able to see how much time you have wasted, how many tasks you could have delegated to others, what types of low return activities you should not have been doing at all and how you could rearrange certain tasks in order to make highest and best use of your schedule.
Benjamin Franklin was at least partially correct when he said, “Time is money." In our capitalist society we make our money during the time we have to earn it. However, time is more valuable then money because it is a non-renewable resource. You can always make more money, but you can never retrieve time.
The tools we have for schedule management are incredible. Palm Pilots and their competitors, Day Runners and their competitors and the old standby, the desk calendar.
Yet, I am always amazed, when I ask my sales and management students, “How many of you use a planning devise, or calendar to schedule your workday?" and a sizable number do not raise their hands!
As in many activities the 80/20 rule rules in schedule management as well. Eighty percent of the results come from twenty percent of your time. Imagine how much more productive you could become if you stretched the 80/20 rule. Suppose you became a schedule management expert and planned your schedule to get the highest and best usage out of your time. It is entirely possible that you could increase the capital return on your time exponentially by planning out your day so that 70 percent of your time is spent on making sure you receive a substantial return on your time.
I have a friend who believes that if he has not made a sizable sale each day he considers himself to be in a sales slump. He plans his day so as to make sure that his odds of closing a sale are high. His day may include golf or phone calls, lunches or meetings, but none of them are haphazard. He is diligent at planning. Each call or golf game, lunch or meeting is part of his strategy. He is not one to network for the sake of networking. Rather he will go to a function after doing his research to make sure that his sales contact ratio will be high. He does not like to “waste time," He feels that by being selective and targeted in the use of his schedule he can make a better living and have plenty of quality time for his wife and young children. He is a master at schedule management. And the results are a testament to his system!
By taking ownership of your attitudes towards time and the way you make-up your schedule you can sift through the trash that you throw in your way. This is the trash that prevents you from reaching your monetary and other personal goals because there is never enough time to achieve your dreams. Well my friends, it is not for the lack of time but rather for the lack of timeliness. Take heed from my friend…the realities of reaching your goals are just waiting for you to grab them. All you have to do is manage your schedule in order to get what you want.
Dan Goldberg, MBA, is President of Dan Goldberg Consulting L.L.C. a training, coaching and business development firm located in the Philadelphia, PA area. He is the founder and former owner of "For Eyes" the highly successful international optical company and an internationally recognized keynote speaker. Dan is the author of the book "Stand Back A Second, Just don't fall off the edge," and of "The Six Steps To Solid Sales Success" and "The Seven Elements Of Successful Management" programs. He is Executive-In-Residence at Kutztown University and has been the subject of stories in Newsweek, Business Week, Playboy, Successful Business, Investor’s Business Daily, major newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Miami, San Francisco, Oakland, St. Louis, Chicago, Los Angeles and many other national and local publications. In addition, Dan has appeared on Good Morning America and other national and local television and radio programs. You can contact him at dg@dangoldberg.com, visit his website at http://www.dangoldberg.com or reach him at (215) 233-5352
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