The Time Management Myth
Why popular time management tips no longer work - real life examples.
Have you tried
all the popular and latest techniques to prioritise your tasks, only to end up
feeling exhausted, not achieving anything valuable and only to wake up and do
it all again the next day?
Most of us have
experienced this all-consuming sense of being overwhelmed and powerless. Many
report the feeling that our lives are full of activity but arestill not
providing any meaning or fulfillment. We are just going through the motions and
simply spinning our wheels, getting nowhere. The resulting feeling, we cannot
deny, is that our time managementand life is slipping out of our control.
The shocking
truth and reality is that the techniques, methods and tools designed to enhance
one’s personal productivity,appear tomake the problem worse! Thestress, worry
and anxiety they are supposed to remove is just adding to the problem and the
vicious circle begins.
As you will see
from thesereal-life conversations, the more you attempt traditional time management
techniques and the more
attempts you make at managing time, the less time and results you feel that you
have. Often you regret not taking action sooner. If left too long, then you are
unable to reverse the trend, as time has run out and your regret is now
permanent.
To illustrate
this point, here are some extracts taken from realbusiness coaching conversations. Tell me if any of this sounds like
you?
I wake at 3:00 a.m. thinking about what my
priorities are going to be tomorrow morning when I get up. I've played all the
games of writing it out before I go to bed, writing it out on Monday morning
and then trying to stick with it Monday, Tuesday and through the week, if I'm
doing it weekly. Sometimes what was a priority last night isn't necessarily a
priority today. Then suddenly it’s the end of the week and we haven't made
money, we haven't done the basics of building a business, creating, or building
the business bigger! We've been dragged down rabbit holes of admin, long phone
conversations, being endlessly on hold with call centresand low value
activities in an effort to try to help people. The problem I find is that there
is so much noise out there in the world about productivity... so, you buy a
book and you read a book attempting to solve the problem and then I get to
chapter 10 of 20 and suddenly I've lost interest.
I'll ask myself questions like how many more
sleepless nights do I want to have on this?
I guess at some point it's got to become painful enough to have to fix.
As I think back over the last two or three years, it's easier to procrastinate
than to do it. Live with the pain. Live with the excuses. Live with the"It's the
pandemic." "It's my wife."
"It's my Dad." whatever and justify it.
People then realize that they're heading down
a path that's going to get to the point they can't pull back. It'll be too late. 5 years will go past, 10 or 20 years and suddenly,
they go, "sh%t, it's actually too late".
Some of the words I would use is "no more
regrets", "should have done this a year ago", "should have
done this two years ago." However, in
hindsight, unless I am prepared to remove the pain then nothing will changeand
it will be too late and then I have to live in regret.
I have made attempts in the past to fix this
problem, I buy a book, do a course, do a longer course, hire abusinesscoach,
or hire the guy that wrote the book, etc.
It was too long of a process, it was too hard of a process, it was too
convoluted of a process. Meanwhile, life goes on and I need to get a cheque in
the next two weeks to pay the bills.
I'd want someoneto
say, "It's not going to take you three hours a day to do this, it's just a
different twist on what you're already doing."But
it's got to be something different.
I need a different perspective, a new way, or
a variation on something I’vealready heard, basically something I haven't
already tried or implemented, something that's not going to take ages and ages
and ages and hours and hours and hours, but you want it quick, and you want it
effective and it's not going to impact youanymore.
I'm looking for a quick fix without it being a
quick fix. Teachers and experts make it too complex and it should not be that
hard.I just want “hit me fast, hit me now”, then I can move on. Cut through the
clutter, remove the stuff and just get back to simplifying it.
Just get down to the basics and make it easier
for me than what it has been, me trying to do it the way I've been doing it, on
and off, attempting it with books and courses and all this other stuff.
The sooner I can talk one-on-one with somebody,
the better, not another program, eBook, course or email list of daily tips.
I am tired of missing out on opportunities, of
missing out on income or losing business because I just can't get my sh&t
together. If I did something else and was doing something else earlier, it
would have probably doubled my revenue and I could have lived the life I originally
wanted with flexibility and on my terms. I would have arrived by now.
Why does this
concern us so much?
Deep down, we
all have the strong desire to live a meaningful and fulfilling life. Many of
us, especially as we get older and come to terms with the reality that we are
not immortal, and that death is inevitable. Until we get to the point that we realise
something needs to change, the struggle will continue.
If you would be open to a different
perspective and wish to discuss your unique situation with a real person who specialises
in how to prioritise and make better decisions, then I encourage you to have a free consultation. I guarantee no sales pressure.
Sam Tornatore
