Managing Time

Friday I had occasion to sit through a FranklinCovey’s Focus Time Management Webinar. I’ve been through time management seminars and coaching before and found most of it behavioral modification in nature. In fact, I classified a previous session leader the Time Management Polizei. Her methods were bent on showing me what I did wrong, force me into duplicating my time management tasks on paper and in my computer, then policing it as if I were in desperate need of a time management parent. Behavioral modification to force someone into a system just doesn’t work with some learners. I am one of those.

This was evident to me long ago when a colleague sat me down after some obvious frustration with FranklinCovey’s rigidly enforced system rules. My friend gave me highlights of many systems and showed her method to me. It was from here that I was able to craft my own methods of managing time. Mind you, I’ve fallen away from that to the point where I needed to be refreshed. Moreover, I am looking at incorporating time management into several curricula and needed to consult the master planner, FranklinCovey.

While I resisted and was distrustful of FranklinCovey’s system thanks to a poor instructor some years ago, I do understand and embrace the theories FranklinCovey puts forth. It is the implementations, for me, that become the problem. I use technology so using a paper planner is not effective or efficient. Still, there are things I need to write down (meeting notes on particular days, out thoughts, potential appointments, new tasks, etc). I know, too, that if it doesn’t beep at me it won’t happen (thus, technology). I am an iPhone user and an Outlook user (for work). The blend of the two with FranklinCovey is not seamless. It requires some clunky additional software for both pc and iPhone that is limited to tasks alone.

I think my system will be to use the computer and iPhone for contacts, schedule, and task (for now) and use a daily wire-bound paper system for the aforementioned note taking. If the whole thing is portable and sleek I am likely to use it more often and thus keep my mind straight.

Time is what we make of it and with all there is to balance, I find that I revert to mind-wasting and time-wasting activities. That is something that needs to change.

Image Source: littledan77

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