The key to time management is self-discipline. Once you begin to take charge and see how your own behaviours affect how you prioritise tasks, a new world will open up to you, you’ll start to feel more empowered and able to manage your time and tasks.

There are three behaviours that each of us (whether you can admit it or not) does, which directly affect our ability to manage time.

Do you CREATE the lack of time?

This means you don’t spend the time setting yourself up for success, putting impossible deadlines on tasks and expectations that are impossible to reach, or not negotiating the time required to do a task. Consider this next time you’re setting up a project or task, can I CREATE a better way of managing this to be done on time?

Do you PROMOTE the problem?

This is often the case when you work with other people, you actually encourage people to take up your time; you volunteer to take on more than your share of responsibility, or don’t delegate effectively. Consider this next time, how does this behaviour PROMOTE a lack of time for me? So long as you support this it will happen.

Do you ALLOW the behaviour?

Are you allowing people to take time from you? How good are you at saying the word ‘no’, shut your door if you need to every once in a while to get some quiet time, let people know you don’t want to be interrupted, or turn your phone off.

Experiment a little…

Place this awareness on the way you work, noticing if you’re ‘creating’, ‘promoting’ or ‘allowing’.

Select one behaviour to shift, so when you are ‘promoting’, wrangle your way out, by delegating the task to someone else (i.e. the right person to be doing the task), or asking for help.

If this starts to work, how can you do this more often?