21:25
Faizan
Time is probably the only thing in life we all have in equal amount. And still I hear almost every day somebody calling out: "I didn't have time for that!". What happened? Did you lose a few hours all of a sudden? Where did they go? It is not a matter of not having time to do things, it is a matter of giving priority to doing other things. And that is the moment where good time management becomes important.
There are dozens - maybe hundreds - of time management systems out there. Some you can find online, others are handed to you in a training course and there are many software programs on the market to help you out. Some are straight forward and others are so complicated that they take more time than they save.
Time management systems don't work miracles. If you have a workload that takes 10 hours a day to get done, you can organize it in whatever way you want to but in the end it still takes you 10 hours.
All systems agree on one thing; you have to prioritize. And that is the first pitfall. Who says that you prioritize the right things? I can almost hear you think now: "If you don't know your priorities, you don't know your job." That may be the case, but then I know all of a sudden many people who don't know their job. And so do you.
Let me give you an example. Sales managers have, in general, two main tasks or responsibilities; Leading/coaching their sales force and doing administrative work like keeping track of closed deals, margins, turn-over etc. Every sensible person will agree with me that a sales manager's first and foremost priority should be leading and coaching his team. In daily practice however, most sales managers spend more time doing administrative tasks than what they are actually paid for: leading their team.
The reason is that the pile of paperwork is measurable. It is easy to see that you are 'behind'. Being 'behind' in coaching is not visible. It is usually the team itself that gets the blame, not the manager. The workload of most managers is too high and they set the wrong priorities. No time management system will cure that. A good sales training probably will. They need to be able to 'sell' to their boss that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
There are dozens - maybe hundreds - of time management systems out there. Some you can find online, others are handed to you in a training course and there are many software programs on the market to help you out. Some are straight forward and others are so complicated that they take more time than they save.
Time management systems don't work miracles. If you have a workload that takes 10 hours a day to get done, you can organize it in whatever way you want to but in the end it still takes you 10 hours.
All systems agree on one thing; you have to prioritize. And that is the first pitfall. Who says that you prioritize the right things? I can almost hear you think now: "If you don't know your priorities, you don't know your job." That may be the case, but then I know all of a sudden many people who don't know their job. And so do you.
Let me give you an example. Sales managers have, in general, two main tasks or responsibilities; Leading/coaching their sales force and doing administrative work like keeping track of closed deals, margins, turn-over etc. Every sensible person will agree with me that a sales manager's first and foremost priority should be leading and coaching his team. In daily practice however, most sales managers spend more time doing administrative tasks than what they are actually paid for: leading their team.
The reason is that the pile of paperwork is measurable. It is easy to see that you are 'behind'. Being 'behind' in coaching is not visible. It is usually the team itself that gets the blame, not the manager. The workload of most managers is too high and they set the wrong priorities. No time management system will cure that. A good sales training probably will. They need to be able to 'sell' to their boss that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
Posted in: business
