How many seconds, minutes, hours do you have in your day? When was the last time (no pun intended) that you got more than 60 seconds in each minute, 60 minutes in each hour and 24 hours in your day? Who do you know who gets more for their minute or hour than you do?

From Australia to Accrington, from Mauritius to Milton Keynes, from Winnipeg to Walsall, there is still the same amount of time for everyone. Time is finite, there is no more, you already have every moment that there is. So, if we cannot manage time, we have to manage ourselves.

No matter what we do for a living, regardless of rank or responsibility, everyone manages at least one very important person – ourselves! We need to practice the art of self management, taking control of ourselves so that we make sensible decisions about how we use the time that’s available to us.

Got a few minutes to spare? Take this self management test. Answer the following questions – honestly now!

Q1 - How good are you at managing your time?
Q2 - Do you set clear, daily goals and objectives?
Q3 - Do you achieve what you set out to do on a daily basis?
Q4 – Where do you lose time during the day?
Q5 – When is your “prime time” (the part of the day when you are at your best)
Q6 - When you make a list of things to do, do you prioritise things on the list?
Q7 - Do you look for different and more efficient ways of working?
Q8 - Do you try to finish your work in normal working hours?
Q9 – Do you set realistic deadlines?
Q10- Are you competent at organising yourself and your work?

Good self management requires courage, discipline and determination. It’s much more than a list of things to do, more than getting through what’s on the next page in your diary.

There’s no escaping the fact that to save ourselves some time, we have to invest time, to discover time, we have to make time. For busy managers - looking after people, performance, their own workloads and life outside work - self management is a critical skill. So why do some managers make such a mess of self management?

Who do you know in your organisation who is always running late, never meets deadlines, gets their priorities wrong and creates problems for themselves and others?

Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why some people are so bad at self management.

Decision making
Some people are hopeless at making a decision. They turn into Hamlet whenever a decision has to be made – to do or not to do – to say yes or to say no – to do it now or do it then. Procrastination and indecisiveness are the mortal enemies of self management.


Sometimes, there can be a fear lurking beneath the surface. For example:

• fear of making a mistake

• fear of being criticised

• fear of being found incompetent

• fear of being blamed

Fear and lack of confidence prevent us from committing to decisions and can seriously undermine our performance. Do these fears sound familiar to you?

Planning
Failing to plan will almost certainly mean that you are planning to fail. Where do some people go wrong in the planning process?

• no plan at all – go with the flow!

• creating unrealistic daily expectations

• killer “to do lists” that never get done

• setting vague goals

• allowing distractions into their plans

In today’s fast paced business environment, careful and realistic planning is vital.

Prioritising

Choosing the order in which to do things and juggling what is important and what is not is a constant struggle for some people. They find themselves torn between:

• nice to do -v- ought to do

• easy to do -v- the really tough one

• urgent -v - important

• high value tasks -v - low value tasks

• interesting -v- boring

Too often, the easy, nice, interesting things win the day and the things that people constantly put off until tomorrow come back to haunt them!


Time robbers and wasters

Every day there are things that come along and steal our time or waste it. Do you recognise any of these?

• constant e-mails

• ringing telephones

• shuffling paper

• lost files

• unnecessary meetings

• uninvited interruptions

How often, when faced with the question “Have you got a minute?” do we respond with “Yes, but it’s all mine and you can’t have it!” Instead, don’t we all find ourselves saying “Of course, come, in sit down”, as we inwardly groan, panic or curse!

When managers struggle with self management this can spell trouble for the organisation. Charged with managing people and performance, budgets and outcomes, sometimes managing themselves takes a back seat and that’s when things start to go wrong.

Getting good at self management involves changing habits and behaviour and developing a new approach so that we make sensible decisions about how we use the time that’s available to us.

Three important skills to develop to improve your self management are:

awareness – of what is to be done, what’s important, how you are behaving

focus – on the biggest priorities or the things that present the greatest risk

determination – to starting and completing things and avoiding distractions

So, forget watching the clock and worrying about how you can manage the hours and minutes as they spin by. Get smart at managing yourself and the way you plan, prioritise, concentrate and behave.