7 Ways to Lead With Your Time Instead of Time Management!

Stop wasting time with time management workshops! There are numerous ways to spend your time wisely. Seriously, time cannot be saved, stored or retrieved although our language describes it as ‘save time’, ‘invest in the time’, ‘make time’ and ‘buy time’. Instead, we ‘kill time’, ‘pass time’, have ‘time-out’ and ‘lose time’.

I have been intrigued and excited by the many executives I have met over the years who seem to use their time well. The ones that amaze me most are those who can fulfill more results in each day. It is not that they have more time (24 hours is maximum), but how they utilize each packet of time. Time can be measured in discrete quantities from seconds (beating a PB), to minutes (length of an interval training set), to hours (total time spent weekly preparing for a marathon). Writing a proposal or preparing for a business presentation may take a few days (so does completing ultra-endurances like the Quadruple Ironman or Deca-Ironman).

We can model the good practices of these time-travelers:

1)    Make a daily and weekly list, and refer to it occasionally.

2)    Tick away as quickly as you complete the tasks you aim to accomplish.

3)    Challenge yourself to do more, without exhausting yourself.

4)    Check for signs of burnout.

5)    Attain an active balance of the physical-mental-emotional, with personal and professional lives.

6)    Be decisive on how you use your time. Hesitation builds delay, and consumes time.

7)    Have productive conversations. If you aren’t enjoying it, you are wasting somebody’s time.