How to determine your time management style
In the previous issue we looked at time management tips to getting started. Now we will look at the different time management styles so that you can apply the technique best suited to your work habits.
Just like you can differentiate between different personality types, you can differentiate between time management styles. This is the reason that most of us fail when trying a new technique. We need to find that technique or combination of techniques that suit our time management style.
FINDING YOUR STYLE
Time Martyr
Your schedule is filled with things that others request; you just want to help. You always busy rescheduling your dairy to accommodate the requests. In the process you try to multitask, you miss your deadline and you don’t take regular breaks. You feel that you have so much responsibility, that it is easier to help others than to focus on the things that bring self-validation. Why is it so important to gain validation from others?
Procrastinator
You multitask to get things done on time. You miss deadlines because you often leave things to the last minute. Your schedule means little because you “can do it later”. You think that you work best under pressure. Have you considered the load of anxiety and stress that this choice brings?
Distractor
The distractions are o so many! You do not keep to the scheduled task at hand because your focus moves to the current distraction. So you multitask, you try focusing on more than one task at a time. Have you noticed how you keep missing deadlines?
Under-estimator
Your time estimation to complete tasks is overly optimistic. You always feel frustrated because you take too long to complete a task. Your optimism causes you to miss deadlines. Have you noticed that your scheduling is ineffective?
Firefighter
You like feeling “busy”, to be working on a few things at once. You are always on the lookout for the next thing to do. You do not keep to the schedule because you do what comes to your attention right now. You keep missing deadlines because you are putting out fires all the time.
Perfectionist
You will go out of your way, even overboard, to complete every task to perfection. You miss deadlines because you are never satisfied with what you have done.
Can you identify yourself?
Austin Kleon said: “Try sitting in the same place at the same time for the same length of time every day for a month and see if something happens.”
Interestingly, all the time management styles cause us to miss deadlines, but when we become aware of our time management style we can find the technique, or combination thereof, to tackle the shortcomings.
The starting point of any technique is to know what you want to accomplish, to break that down into smaller activities, and then to plan for those activities. You must determine the most productive time of the day to do the most important activities, regardless of which technique/s you decide on.
TECHNIQUES
There are 3 main categories of techniques, namely lists, projects, and time blocking. We will look at all three separately.
Lists
I suggest that you use only one list to avoid confusion and to keep things simple.
- Make TO-DO lists for the activities that you planned and tick them off
- Make a NOT-TO-DO list of the activities that you do not want to do
- Even a DONE list for all the activities that you have completed.
- Prioritize activities according to the EISENHOWER MATRIX.
- You tackle the Urgent and Important task during your most productive time of the day, or first thing in the morning, in other words, you are “EATING THE FROG”
- You “PASS THE MONKEY ALONG” when you delegate the Urgent but Not-Important tasks
Projects
Handle the goals as a PROJECT and schedule all the related activities with a specific deadline in mind. Toyota developed the KANBAN system; it is a visual system that tracks tasks across labelled columns e.g. To do, In Progress, Completed.
Time blocking
Elon Musk uses this technique to plan his day. He decides on his top goals for the day and blocks time to work on those goals.
Using TIME INCREMENTS you decide what will work for you in, say, 20-minute blocks. After the 20 minutes, you can either continue or stop and start with a different activity for the next 20 minutes. Remember to take a break in between though. You decide how long an activity will take you, be realistic here, and block that specific amount of time in your calendar to complete a task.
Be flexible, reschedule the time block as the day progress. Important to remember that time expands and contracts depending on your chosen increment.
PRODUCTIVITY JOURNAL
Time (or events) management is all about forming new habits. As a motivation to continue forming the new habit, you can keep a PRODUCTIVITY JOURNAL to reflect on. If you decide to block time to work on your business every day or attend to emails at a specific time, you can use the SEINFELD METHOD and mark the days on a calendar that you have achieved your goal. That also called the NOT BREAKING THE CHAIN method.
There are many apps available to assist with time management, once you have decided on the technique of combination thereof to use, you can download an app for that specific technique to assist you.
By Gerty Green