From time to time people ask for time management training and since today was another such occasion, I will share my thoughts on the time management problem.
I don’t directly offer time management training myself, and the reason is that I think time management training gives people a brief sense that it’s manageable, but mostly the problem is setting priorities and managing in cooperation with your manager. After training, real life comes up again as a hurdle. We know what we don’t want, but we very rarely know how to positively articulate what we do want.
In my experience, nine times out of ten, the problem with time management is the fear of saying NO, the fear of losing my identity of being in a hurry because I belong. I don’t want to say that time management training doesn’t work, but if you want to have a deeper impact, I myself usually advise clients to look at why it is difficult to prioritise and what the emotional barriers are behind it.
Learning to say no requires the courage to face my fears about why I don’t dare to say “No” and why I look for a long reason to say “No”.
And then on top of that you can build the implementation of technical skills. Most of the time these technical skills are known before the training, but for some reason are not applied. Solving the root problem and articulating your clear will, working with fears, solves the problem.
