Tag Archives: “time management”

Stretch yourself – be like Pregnancy Pants.

27 Friday Mar 2020

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“Sometimes things can go right only by first going very wrong.” Edward Tenner

And here we are. We exist at a time where the whole world has come to a grinding crawl, with the retail and hospitality industries taking a big hit. Which means that we, the citizens, denied our access to the dopamine of retail therapy and the opportunity to get away from it all suddenly find we have to find some other way of feeling good and ‘finding ourselves’.

Charles R Hobbs, of the original, non-Brian Tracy title TimePower, observed that when we go on holiday, the first thing we do on arrival is recreate the Comfort Zone that is home. First, we check the TV channels, and then we find out the wi-fi password. Is he right? Be honest.

Today, the comfort zones of shopping and the workplace have been denied to many, and to be fair that has resulted in a lot of imagination being utilised to cope with new challenges, which is arguably Mankind’s greatest skill. And as one esteemed philosopher put it, Mankind’s development has been the result of Challenge – Response.

The Challenge today is how to live in a confined space and feel happy, secure and productive for the period of the Lockdown. Of course, the nature of this lockdown is, shall we say, a bit like pregnancy trousers – there’s a bit of leeway that will expand and contract as needs demand.

Notwithstanding the ability or otherwise to do your paid work, we have a twenty-day window to:

  • Discover Kindle e-books, which can be in your lap in seconds and can feed your mind on a subject of interest to you.
  • Access on-line courses which can make you more employable.
  • Do all those jobs around the house that have needed doing. (My kitchen FINALLY looks organised.)
  • Talk to your partner and kids.
  • And your neighbours, whether they work for the NHS or not.
  • Telephone friends, neighbours and workmates using those unlimited minutes you’ve paid for.
  • (Personal favourite) Study The Seven Habits, First Things First and Principle-Centred Leadership and discover new ways of thinking – how to think, not what to think – an important distinction. All available on Kindle and, if you’re clever, very cheaply.
  • Read my blogs more often.

All of the above ideas, and any you can discover for yourself, will mean that you come out of the other side of this a better person, more organised, and possibly even more productive than before.

But, above all, doing something like those things will absolutely, unarguably and without fail MASSIVELY increase your sense of self-esteem – the value you place on yourself.

Go on – don’t just be a public hero like everyone else. Stretch yourself.

Win a Private Victory as well.

Character, Character, Character – and Standards. Now, more than since 1945.

24 Tuesday Mar 2020

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The lockdown of 2020 has begun. Not since 1939 has anything like this been asked of the citizenry of the UK. That year, 40-odd million citizens did right by their country and their fellow Brits by complying with and trusting the advice and orders of those we elected to deal with exactly this kind of situation.

And a few thousand or so took advantage. Spivs, we called them. We decried their disobedience to the rule of law. And then we bought eggs off them.

We find ourselves in the middle of a truly extraordinary – for us – series of events. Which means we are now being called upon to demonstrate more character, as a people, than we have for quite some time.

Now we can stand up, or we can fall down.

It grieves me to say this, but the nature of televisual celebrity suggests that this might not happen. The young of today, fed as they are by the ‘me’ cult of the Kardashians and Made in Chelsea, will either act true to expectations and, as the evidence so far suggests, stamp their feet and demand their rights to do what they please regardless of the truth of principled living.

Or they may surprise us and show the kind of character that the youth of 1939 demonstrated when they knuckled down, volunteered, fought and died in defence of what had gone before.

Note that – they had a life, and Hitler interrupted it. They accepted that intrusion and a nation rose up to the challenge.

We had a life yesterday, and a virus has interrupted it.

I am calling upon everyone to demonstrate the same levels of character that were displayed then, by people just like us who had loved ones to protect, lifestyles to preserve, and an enemy to defeat.

And I will call out any selfish idiots I see.

Now, on a slightly different tack, I’m also going to ask that people do something else they may be tempted to put to one side while they are in isolation.

Maintain, or even Raise Your Standards.

At home, it is easy to let standards slip. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggests that the standards people visibly maintain and expect in the workplace don’t apply when they’re at home. Suit wearers get into their baggy sweatpants, don’t shave, watch telly all day eating fast food.

That is the slippery slope to weight-gain, depression and lowered productivity.

Work as hard at home as you do at work. I’m not suggesting you wear business attire in your house (although why not?), but you can at least dress as if you’re going to be seen in public, ensure you’re clean and well-presented, and only grow a beard if you really mean it. (Ladies excepted.)

Then ‘normal’ will be a lot easier to achieve when it’s all over.

Bon chance, mon amis.

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered. Or Beguiled?

23 Monday Mar 2020

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When I have promoted my works and offer training in the realms of personal development, I often find resistance not to the time or costs, but to the very idea of the material. I wrote in Police Time Management why I think this is in respect of that particular field of knowledge, but today I listened to a lecture by the late, great Jim Rohn and I think he hit the nail on the proverbial.

He spoke of the Sermon on the Mount and described how the response was reported in the Bible as being divided into three types – the perplexed, the mockers and the believers. Hence my title this morning.

Let’s have a think about all three, and their motivations.

The Perplexed. They don’t know what you’re talking about. These people are the ones in the Unconscious Incompetence bracket of Noel Burch’s model. They don’t know what they don’t know and are equally unable to comprehend that what they don’t know will serve them. They’ve likely already concluded it’s too hard to understand so they don’t bother trying.

The Mockers. These are the ones who know it all, or think they do. They don’t see that there is an alternative way of thinking to the one they’ve already decided is best. And rather than articulate that because they know it to be a stupid position or can’t face the work involved, they attack the idea. It’s easier than knuckling down and listening.

The Believers. Now, here we have to be careful because there are actually three strands. There are the Believers who believe regardless of the efficacy of the argument, so they’ll believe no matter what is said, if they are convinced by the speaker. Then there are Believers who are the Consciously Incompetent, who know that there is something that they don’t know – and want to know it. And the final subset are the ones who’ve had the training and have applied it to the degree that they know it to be good stuff.

That last set is very present on LinkedIn, but there’s something they could do that they aren’t doing. They aren’t letting anyone else know that the stuff is good.

Some possible reasons. They are naturally well-organised ‘time-managers’ and don’t realise that others need this input. Or perhaps they think it’s a great secret and don’t want anyone to know because it makes them appear really effective. Or they think that the cost of training their peers and staff in such material isn’t cost-effective.

So they are Believers but not Advocates. I like the by-line I use for my LinkedIn page – Advocate of the Seven Habits – because it underlines my willingness to communicate something I believe in. I would ask others to do the same, but not only in terms of their chosen profession.

I would encourage people to look at the provision of training in the sub-skills of ‘work’ – sector specific or in a more general sense – like communications, self- and time-management, administration practices, even mindfulness (ugh) if it makes their staff more productive and less stressed.

As the greats have said (and I paraphrase) – Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll produce enough fish for his employer to sell at a massive profit through enhanced effectiveness and efficiencies.

Go on. Train your staff or just buy them a book about ‘stuff’. Many have, and many have benefited as a consequence.

Be the right kind of Believer.

Clutter. Ask a better question.

21 Friday Feb 2020

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Clutter. Clutter of the mind, clutter of the desk, clutter of the computer. All of it gets in the way, and all of it is our fault.

Edwin C. Bliss, author of time management texts of yore, suggested that people made a big mistake when deciding whether or not to keep something, like a document or file. The erring folk asked, “Will I conceivably ever need this again?”, and because ‘conceivably’ is always, er, conceivable, it gets filed away for ever. Clutter.

Bliss suggested asking a different question. He proposed asking the question, “If I lost this, what would I do?”

If the answer was ‘shrug’, he’d bin it. Alternatively, the mind would be directed towards finding a solution to finding the potentially lost, and the imagination would present answers as to how to minimise the need or facility for retrieval.

Of course, we now have The Cloud (a.k.a. someone else’s reliable and secure – honest – computer), and memory sticks (my preferred option). But the problem with these can be the same if we aren’t careful – we just gather sticks and clutter them, instead.

So the time management advice of the day is to manage your retrieval system by first of all only putting into it what you absolutely know would be irretrievable if you didn’t, but also to name the files in such a way as to find them easily when you do need them.

In the front office at Newport Central Police Station in Gwent, there was a computer. By virtue of its location it was used by everyone who needed to write something quickly for prisoner handovers, reports, whatever. Anyone using this desktop was presented with a screen containing shortcuts to Doc1. Not just one Doc1, but somehow to a plethora of Doc1s. Notwithstanding my confusion as to how many Doc1s a computer could create, how and why they managed to save them to the Desktop screen instead of the document folder I will never understand: but the question also arose as to how long anyone would take to find ‘their’ Doc1 if they needed it again?

Giving a saved file a searchable, relevant name is important, and there is no limit to how long that name could be (within reason). Once the immediate need for access is over, stick it somewhere safe, accessible but out of the way. Stick, cloud, external drive, whatever suits. Learn how to use the search function on the documents and other folder windows (you’d be surprised how few people know how that works).

But don’t have your file icons cluttering your folders, desktop or laptop screen or desk (in the case of paper), dragging your attention away from the truly important, needed stuff. Your mind is for thinking. Not for managing files.

Do it Now.

 

For more on the subject, and other time management advice, buy this book, available from Amazon.

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Save your children!

19 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Dearly beloved, today’s lesson comes from the Book of Principle-Centred Leadership, Chapter 12, pages whatever (Kindle doesn’t paginate).

Don’t you just love it when you think a profound thought – and then read a book by a great writer who expresses exactly the same idea? Maybe with better prose, but identifying the same concept, nevertheless?

I have suggested in the past that success is basically the result of excellent time management and effective communication, and in the aforesaid book, Stephen Covey suggested that a successful family life is the result of those two skills. Okay, he adds problem-solving as a third competence but two out of three ain’t bad.

Covey proposes that time management, or rather the ability to lead and manage ourselves in the context of the time available and our relationships, is essential if we aren’t to waste time NOT doing those things that create what we define as success. He proposes that the ability to be clear in communication is also key – clearly saying what we mean, ensuring that we understand what others mean, and even getting so good at communication that we hardly have to speak at all. And developing the skill to solve problems, which is based on asking four questions.

  1. Where are we now?
  2. Where do we want to be?
  3. How will we get there?
  4. How will we know we’ve got there?

Which, to be frank and to return ‘his’ three skills back to matching my two and making me feel smug all over again, is basically the formula for setting a Goal – in this case, setting the Goal of Solving the Problem. And goal setting firmly comes under the time management heading. So there.

Can you think of any problem that isn’t solved by asking those four questions? Even if the problem is solved in three seconds flat, the solver undergoes that process even if they don’t realise it.

David Allen, in his book ‘Getting Things Done’ also outlines how we unconsciously undergo a ‘Natural Planning Method’ when we plan even the simplest of projects, which scientists have analysed into Project Management ‘science’. Everything complicated started out as something simple. We just make it harder because we’re sooooo clever. Which might explain why, in 2021, it takes years to implement any idea that used to take weeks. Discuss.

Given that Stephen Covey and I are so clever, one has to ask (as a client, employer or individual):

Why don’t they teach time management, communication and generic problem solving to young people in school?

Imagine an organised student able to express him- or herself with patient sentence construction, who has a plan to achieve what is expected of them as well as what they want to achieve as a person, who sees a problem as a relatively simple A to B issue that s/he has time and resources to solve. Instead of just telling them stuff we want them to regurgitate in December and May.

It seems strange how we expect people to know this stuff without teaching it.

Buy this book and give it to your kids!

7HT

 

Half a Life. That’s all you have left….. if you aren’t careful.

14 Friday Feb 2020

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The Half-Life. A physics term identifying how long a radioactive element/isotope takes to lose half its mass through decay. For example, the half life of uranium being from 159,200 years to 4.5 billion years, one kg of uranium will become 500g in 159,200 years or so (!), but that 500g will only become 250g in the next 159,200 years. Simples.

But there is another HalfLife, the one proposed by Stephen Covey, who opined that the Half Life of a career is as little as 2 years, and what he meant was that in just 2 years the currency of your professional knowledge is reduced by half if you don’t maintain competence (Second Resolution). I know from my own experience, after returning to work after an 18-month post-retirement absence, that a lot of new mnemonics and practices had been created while I was gone. I was still competent to do a lot of stuff but I would have needed some retraining to get back up to full speed. Which is why, when it was appropriate, I chased up the training I required.

A surprising number of people object to on-the-job training and to attending courses. I know that some of their reluctance is down to a perceived interruption to the work that they are already doing, that mounts up inexorably while they are away and, occasionally, the belief that the training is unnecessary and irrelevant. We had a saying in the police:

“That was a three-week course crammed into six.”

But if we are to stay relevant, if we are to provide the best possible service, we have to keep up with developments within our selected professions if we aren’t to become redundant-but-still-present.

The problem with being redundant-but-still-present is that it can all too quickly turn into ‘just’ redundant. Being on top of your game and staying on top of your game aren’t distinct processes – they are the same thing. What’s more, by properly engaging in the training you are offered, you start to develop the ability to influence that training – to make sure it IS relevant and appropriate rather than a tick-box exercise.

I do chuckle at CPD that requires ticking a box that you read something. Who actually reads something if all you have to do is declare you read it? Well, the ethical do, but that isn’t all of us, is it?

Look upon training as a development opportunity, and opportunity to ask questions, and an opportunity to have a bit of a rest from the daily grind of that real work you’re worried will come back and bite you.

Of course, the ability to do the latter, to relax during a course while other work isn’t getting done, requires that you apply some of the time management advice of the kind I promote.

So welcome training, seek it out, maximise its effectiveness and utilise what you learn as quickly after the training as is possible.

Or that career you thought you had for ever might just be half as long as you expected.

 

Time Management Training is available HERE.

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If you don’t think you’re good enough…..

10 Monday Feb 2020

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Stephen Covey’s son-in-law, as I understand it a medical student at the material time, was asked in an interview, “If being considered for surgery, would you prefer your doctor to be a man of good character, or of great competence?

The response provided was considered. “If I needed the surgery, I would want the super-competent surgeon. But if it was a question of whether I needed the surgery, I’d want the one of character.”

Good answer. But still arguably incomplete.

As I review The Three Resolutions book, and by simple virtue of the fact that I constantly review Covey’s written and spoken works (good ol’ YouTube!) I discovered yet another thought-provoker. It was about the relationship between character and competence (the Second Resolution).

In my book, I write about the progressive nature in which The Three Resolutions are applied, and the impression may be that the one leads to the next and that they are in some way separate, which is not so. They are a continuum, so the crossover from one to the next is more of a blurred edge than a fence, if you will. The same goes on the ‘separation’ between the traits linked at each level – self-discipline and self-denial are linked, not separate characteristics, for example.

Therefore, character and competence are also linked, with blurred edges and ‘bleed’ through from one to another and to the higher levels of purpose and service.

To illustrate how they are interdependent, consider how having good character means better decisions, which in turn feeds better performance (competency). Imagine those two doctors addressing the concerns of the patient. The greedy one who is super-competent might agree that the surgery is necessary, but his self-interest trumps that of the patient every time. His poor character might not affect the decision to have the surgery, but it might affect a decision during the surgery, which means he may, super-competently, do something completely unnecessary and risk the patient’s welfare. Not in terms of life or death, perhaps, but any decision made by a person of poor character is suspect. You know that. You’ve probably experienced it!

The person of good character, having concluded the surgery is necessary, is the surgeon who calls in the super-competent dodgy doc – but supervises his operation because she knows that he is suspect. Her good character means she recognises where her skills aren’t as good as his, but she doesn’t abandon her responsibility for her patient to the man of poor character.

When it comes to producing results, the two – competence and character – are inextricably interlinked but they do not, necessarily, have to exist in one person. They can exist within a carefully, ethically managed team. One that communicates, and one that knows the strengths and weaknesses within itself – and manages them in such a way as to make the weaknesses of individuals irrelevant to the whole team.

From a time management perspective this means that doing things right the first time, as a result of an individual with both great character and super competence or as a result of a team possessing those traits between them, saves a lot of do-overs, apologies, law-suits and recriminations. That is a LOT of time saved!

Endeavour to possess both character and competence but recognise when you lack the latter and seek the complementary strength required to fill that gap.

Ain’t no shame in that.

Must try harder…..

05 Wednesday Feb 2020

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Why do I focus this blog on time management when I have written a better book on personal development? Good question.

In total, I have written four books. The first two were related to my profession, specifically investigation and, as a sub-genre, Tracing Wanted and Missing Persons. They were based on my training and experiences and the latter was a field in which I excelled locally, according to some of my peers. They were fairly easy to research and to write.

The third one that I wrote was on time management, you would not be surprised to read. It focused on the field of policing because no-one teaches police officers and staff how to manage their time, despite recommendations by the Home Office that they ought to. Also, easy to write, and just as valid for non-police officers (for whom I recently edited out police references, but then I changed my mind and edited it back.).

The last, which I am currently revising, is The Three Resolutions. This is a personal development ‘philosophy’ based on a single chapter in one of Stephen Covey’s works and one which I am proud of. But here’s the thing, and it’s the reason I don’t blog so much about it – until now, perhaps.

That reason is – the advice in it is the hardest with which to comply.

Personal development has its easy tricks and shortcuts, like any activity, but applying the content of The Three Resolutions is hard. It’s hard because it speaks of self-discipline. It’s hard because it requires character. It’s hard because it promotes service to others as a route to success. Even for the bloke what wrote it. Especially for the bloke what wrote it.

Sometimes I think that the standards that are the hardest to meet are – our own.

When others lay down standards they usually supplement their instructions with ‘how’ to comply. When we write our own we just assume we know how to comply.

When others set standards, they watch over us and enforce compliance. When we set our own standards, only we watch over them.

When we fail to meet others’ standards, there is a consequence. When we fail to meet our own, we rationalise that there are no consequences.

But we’re wrong. So, so wrong.

When we fail to meet our own standards we feel guilt. Conscience, which we told to tell us when we fail to act according to our own values, reminds us when we dither and procrastinate over what we agreed, with ourselves, was ‘best’.

All that said, the reasons I wrote The Three Resolutions are twofold. First, I liked the field and the best way to learn something is to teach it. But second, and maybe more important, was the desire to act in accordance with the contents.

I regularly fail, but at the same time I occasionally succeed. Those are the great days. The ones where I don’t quite make it – still great, because I try.

You can decide not to bother to be great, so all days will be mediocre but satisfying because you’ve achieved ‘average’. But I prefer to at least try.

Where are you on the ‘don’t care – trying a bit – trying hard’ continuum? Join me at this end…….

 

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Sé español*

04 Tuesday Feb 2020

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I’ve been sitting at the laptop for about 30 minutes, browsing professional and news sites with a view to finding some inspiration for today’s lesson, listening and singing along to Keane’s ‘Everybody’s Changing’. I do quite a good rendition, you know. It’ll be on my next Karaoke playlist because my cough is causing Bat Out of Hell issues. Which will disappoint my fans.

I was stumped. And I was stumped, in part, because I’m pooped. And that was the inspiration, oddly enough.

Why aren’t we allowed to be tired?

If you were to read and wholly subscribe to the personal development/self-help literature and the prognostications of those who speak at huuuuggggeee events (and don’t be mistaken, I’ve loved the ones I have attended), then ‘being tired’ is not an option. To listen to them, we must feel energised all of the time, even when we’re asleep – but we aren’t allowed to use coffee, BTW. Thanks for the help, Tony.

But the truth of the matter is that we all get tired, and sometimes we get fatigued at a most inconvenient time. In some occupations this is not a problem and you can work around it by managing the tasks you have to do around the way you feel in the moment.

But for the majority, ‘being tired’ is disallowed as an excuse, so ‘feeling depressed’ has to be used because we live in a woke world and people must acknowledge your right to feel down. But not your right to be pooped.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit cruel and over the top, but when has, “Sorry, I’m knackered,” been accepted by a manager? Even a manager who’s as knackered as you?

So let’s start a movement. Or a still-ment. Let us acknowledge that all tiredness, other than that which is self-imposed by staying up all night for the Super Bowl in the UK even though you have never watched a single round beforehand, should be as acknowledgeable as a justification or reason for a brief stoppage. After all, in Spain, it isn’t an issue to have a kip in the PM. Psychologists have shown it to be beneficial. Unless you’re the only pilot, in which case “WAKE UP!!”

Find a suitable spot and close your eyes for ten minutes. See how much better you feel afterwards. Are you up for writing a small LinkedIn post?

Good. I’m off for mine. Sleep tight.

 

*Be Spanish

Is your time style in 2020? Or, better still, 1944?

31 Friday Jan 2020

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Today’s the day! As of 11pm tonight (GMT) the United Kingdom will no longer be part of the EU – sort of – and we will be the masters of our own fate.

And guess what? The Earth and the clocks will continue to turn regardless. They will turn at the same rate that they have done for millions of years (Earth) and since 1511 (clocks – I checked). Yet for some reason, time these days seems to go slower in some cases, and faster in others.

Let me take Slow. In 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. War was declared, although a bit of a phony war took place for a while. By the middle of 1940 it was in full swing. By 1942 it was all over the world, and by 1945 it was over. Entire countries recruited, trained, transported, equipped, managed, tended, repatriated and de-militarised in about 4 years. Computers, the internet, robot-based mass production – none of those existed, yet when it had to be done, it was done in the same 24-hours-a-day we have in 2020.

We are told that negotiating a treaty with the EU will take 10 years. With ALL the aforementioned infrastructure.

Now, Fast. When I was young I recall that a programme timed to last an hour, nearly did. Now a programme that lasts an hour on commercial TV takes just 43 minutes when streamed. Yes, you can save 17 minutes an hour by NOT watching adverts. A trip to London took 4-5 hours, now it’s about three – two and a bit if there’s no traffic. Buying unusual stuff took planning – now it’s at your door in 24 hours or less.

Same. Time. Available.

Which raises the question, when you say you haven’t got time to do something, are you in 2020 or 1944? In 1944 they must have had looooaaaaddddssss of time because they created and executed so much. In 2020 everyone is in a rush to achieve bu66er all.

Truth be told, when we say to someone we don’t have time we are usually lying. Not always, because if you genuinely don’t have time for something asked of you, you should, if telling the truth, be able to state exactly what it is that’s stopping you, and why.

If you can’t state that, then what you are really saying is, “I don’t think that what you want is important enough to me to justify my taking part.”

Why not just honestly, sincerely and where necessary apologetically, say, “No”? It’s not against the law.

It’s because we don’t like confrontation and we perceive that a simple No will invite comment, usually negative. I don’t think it’s because we don’t like to offend – Twitter suggests that offending is all most of us want to do. But it might be. 😊

Next time someone asks you to do something that might slightly delay or divert you but which would, in all honesty, allow you to provide a small service that really isn’t that inconvenient, just say, “Yes.” It’ll surprise a lot of people, mind, so use it sparingly.

If you genuinely cannot, respectfully decline and explain why.

In time, you’ll find people only ask you to do important things. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you become effective.

Have a great weekend.