A Clients Story on Time Management
I was talking with a potential client last week and he said to me, “Pete can you help me with my time and my discipline?”
I asked him what he meant.
He replied, “I need help with my time management and to be disciplined in keeping to my time limits. I run out of time every day. What can I do?” (He runs a big professional practice.)
When I asked him how many hours he worked a day, he replied, “I am up at 5am and into work and not getting home till after 7pm. I am not seeing much of my family!”
Is this something you have said to yourself in the past?
Firstly he doesn’t have a time management issue, he has a self management issue. And many of us have this same problem. He is not disciplining his time or himself and is allowing the business to run him.
I let him know firstly that we would have an Alignment session so that he would realign his thoughts on time and discipline, and change his behaviours. Then he would implement a default diary so that he could monitor his time effectively, and also see where his time was being used to least effect. (if you don’t have a default diary, please do get one and use it – you’ll increase your productivity by about 33%).
My potential client was excited about this and wanted to know what next. I said, “Lets just put this into effect first.”
We put aside time in the diary for the Alignment session. And guess what – the next day he postponed the initial date saying he was too busy. So we set another date. And guess what. 3 days later he pulled out totally, saying, “After careful consideration I’m not able to go ahead with this for the moment. I will contact you again in 9 months or so.”
If nothing changes, nothing changes. Don’t fall into the same trap as this professional businessman. You’ll be the poorer for it in the long term. In 9 months time, he will most probably be in the same position as he is today.