LEADERS DON’T ENGAGE IN TIME MANAGEMENT
Many years ago, when I commenced my job as head of Continuing Legal Education at Georgetown Law, there was a cadre of experienced lawyers who traveled the country offering CLE programs on specific topics and receiving a percentage of the registration revenue collected.
One of the most popular speakers had a program titled “Time Management.” Then, over the years, other lawyers developed proficiency at this topic and offered popular presentations on this same subject. Time management was a big seller for lawyers looking to get more done in a day.
Now, many years later, I think many of us know that “time management” is a misleading term. It sounds great, but it means little. No human being can manage time, unless he or she is H.G. Wells’s main character in “The Time Machine” or Doc Brown with his flux capacitor in “Back to the Future.”
People who bemoan their lack of “time management” skills often articulate the wrong complaint: “I didn’t have time for that!” or “I didn’t have enough hours in my day.” Rather than seeking to “have time” for a particular action or initiative, we need to “make time” for them.
Notice the difference in the verbs. When we say that we did not “have time,” we are adopting a reactive approach. We did nothing incorrectly. We did the best we could. We simply did not “have time.” Time ran out. Time evaporated. Time expired.
What’s lacking with this reactive approach? Personal responsibility. We did not do anything poorly – lack of judgment, lack of clarity, lack of priority setting. We just ran out of time.
When we instead acknowledge that we did not “make time” for a particular activity, decision process, or effort, we are engaging in a significant paradigm shift. We are accepting responsibility for the result. We are moving from a reactive mindset to a proactive one.
This movement means we are reframing what has transpired. In leadership coaching, we like to say that people benefit from “looking in the mirror.” When we shift our language from “I did not have time” to “I did not make time,” we are accepting a challenge: the challenge of striving to not engage in better “time management,” but rather better self-management within the time that we have at our disposal.
Another interesting advantage of this paradigm shift is we start training our brains to be more assertive about decision-making, about priority-setting, about delegation and a host of other productive activities. We literally create new neural pathways in our brains. The more that we use the language of “make time” instead of “take time,” the more this mindset can become a habit that gets reinforced over days, weeks and months.
So if we cannot manage time during our work days, what can we manage in a proactive manner:
-We can manage our energy levels
-We can manage our focus
-We can manage our intentionality
-We can manage our control of interruptions, most of which are self-inflicted (People check their phones more than 50 times an hour)
-We can manage our meeting times
-We can manage our choices to disconnect from work in evenings and on weekends
-We can manage our priorities, like family time and vacation time
-We can manage our nutrition
-We can manage our exercise levels
-We can manage our sleep habits
-We can manage our social media behavior
-We can manage our planning processes
-We can manage our tendency to engage in “multi-tasking”(Our brains can literally only do one thing at a time)
-We can manage our attitude
-We can manage our goal setting
-We can manage our conversations
As you move forward in this upcoming work week, I encourage you to shift your language from “have time” to “make time”
Remember that you have control over how you use your own time. Take responsibility for using it wisely.
You will be more productive. You will be more effective. You will be more satisfied.
Make it a great week.
If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!
-Larry