This week I delivered a number of Training sessions on “Time Management & Prioritisation Skills” and the feedback received further proved a belief I always had – that mastering time management skills can unleash a huge potential within us to achieve things we always wanted to achieve but somehow never managed, due to some internal resistance.

The Time Management training was devised to cover the following important elements:-

1. The psychological frame of mind for time management: Time management involves the ability to plan and then manage your time during the day in order to achieve your goals. The basis of it is having a frame of mind to be able to manage your time. This frame of mind needs to be built on your Desire, Decisiveness, Determination and Discipline to manage your time and get control over your life.

2. Key Components of time management: Plan Ahead, Establish realistic Goals, Analyse how you presently use your time, Set Boundaries & Avoid Distractions, Delegate, Learn when to say NO.

3. Organising the workspace: Taking the time to get organised can save you time in the long run. Constantly working around clutter can seriously impede your productivity. Great time managers set up and organize their workspaces to cut down on the amount of time necessary for each task. I will show techniques of how to get a workspace properly organised.

4. The prioritisation criteria: On what basis should one prioritise? Its Urgency? Its Importance? This part will outline a prioritisation model and how it can be implemented.

5. Managing and scheduling incoming tasks: Being able to schedule tasks properly is a skill in itself. Are you scheduling enough time for each tasks? Are the tasks scheduled in line with your prioritisation? Has any contingency time been included in your scheduling? All the steps that need to be covered to schedule task and one’s time will be covered.  

6. Transforming tasks: Situation analysis: Are the tasks going to really address the conclusions of the situation you need to address? How can one analysis the situation at hand – An overview of the SWOT analysis. Are the tasks outlined going to address the outcome of the SWOT analysis?

7. Dealing with time thieves and interruptions: Interruptions reduce our productivity because they draw us out of what we were doing and what we were concentrating on. The longer the interruptions the harder it will be to return to what we were doing. This area will cover techniques of how to deal with time thieves and unwanted interruptions.

8. Delegating tasks effectively: One of the possible avenues to manage your time abetter and be on top of things is being able to delegate tasks to others. However being able to delegate is a skill in itself. What are the necessary cultural building blocks that need to be present to be able to delegate tasks? What is the mindset any person needs to have to be able to delegate effectively. This area will cover key aspects of all that is necessary to have successful delegation

9. Setting achievable goals: Goals are standards that individuals use to evaluate how well they are doing now, relative to where they want to end up. An important reason for a failure in achieving goals, is attributed to poorly defined and ambiguous goals. Poorly defined goals may lead to the formation of weak intentions to realise the goal and to subsequent procrastination. Hence setting good goals is also a skill in itself and this area will cover key aspects of good goal setting.

10. Procrastination: This is a key subject in time management, as many times procrastination is a massive time waster. This course identifies the sources of procrastination and how to mitigate it.

I cannot stress enough the importance of such training. I can hardly think of anyone or of any organisation that would not need it. Time is the most precious thing we have. None of it can ever be recovered and it is a very finite resource, with few of us ever thinking about how very finite it is!