Contrary to popular opinion, good time management is not about cramming every second of your day full of ‘stuff’. In fact, it is quite the opposite! Realise that even the best plans can fail and sometimes, despite your best efforts, hings will go wrong. Be prepared to adapt and change when you need to.
The Three Rules of Adaptability
Rule # 1:The most important rule of being adaptable is deceptively simple – don’t expect everything to go right Do you ever feel frustration when you are delayed or when things don’t turn out right? Why is that? It’s because your expectations of the situation were different to the way the situation actually turned out.
Let me give you an example. Have you ever been in a situation where you’re packing up to leave on a Friday afternoon and just as you’re turning off your computer your manager comes in with an urgent job? How did it make you feel? Was there some sense of frustration?
Now, imagine how you would have felt if you had of gone to your
manager and said, “I am heading off in a few minutes, is there anything you need me to do before I go?” What’s the difference between these two situations?
Well, in the first situation your expectation was that you were going to go home. Your mind was ready to switch off and you were out of the building (mentally) even if your body hadn’t quite caught up yet.
In the second situation, you expected there will be more work. You actually went and asked for it. Remember that your expectations of a situation completely determine how you will react to it.
Rule #2:The second rule of adaptability is to leave yourself time
If you’ve crammed every second of your day full of stuff, you’re going to find it much more difficult and stressful to move things around.
For example, if you’ve planned 8 back-to-back meetings on Tuesday, what’s going to happen if on the way to an appointment the most important client calls you and says they’ve been delayed by an hour? The stress of shifting appointments of moving your whole day around could quite seriously cause frustration, disappointment and stress.
However, if you know that the most important thing for you to do that day is to meet that client, try leaving a couple of hours available on the off chance that the client might be running late or there could be a delay.
Rule #3:The third rule of adaptability is to be is adaptable
The things you say to yourself constantly determine the person that you will become. If you find yourself often saying things like, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. or “I don’t like change. I’m set in my ways”. Stop it! If you tell yourself your not adaptable, you’ll behave in just that way.
While being organised and in control of your time is an important skill, realising that things can go wrong and Murphy’s Law will apply to some situations, is the sign of person with a healthy level of adaptability.
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