***Why Traditional Time Management Techniques Are Not Enough – And What You Can Do to Find More Time

Thousands of people all round the modern world struggle to manage their time each day. Why? Why is it that we are always running out of time, running late and unable to find time? I suggest it is because traditional time management techniques don’t work any more.nnIn my first year of coaching ALL my clients and many other potential clients complained about not having enough time. I changed my business name to Time Creation and I focused on the niche of helping people create more time.nnEveryone I work with finds more time. Some people work 20 less per week. Some reduce their stress from 9.9/10 to 3/10. Others improve their productivity by 50%.nnWhat was happening in my programs that made so much difference to these people when all the time management tools they tried didn’t help? I believe there are three main reasons. nn? Responsibilityn? Personalisationn? Letting GonnThis was the starting point for the time management from the He?rt principles.nnTHE TRADITIONAL TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES ARE NOT ENOUGHnnThe time management techniques that are being taught now have essentially based on the same principles for nearly 100 years.nnThe BIG question to ask is “are these techniques effective today, in the 21st Century?”nnLet’s have a look and see. Here are some of the most popular techniques that form the basis of most time management courses:nn? Daily to-do listsn? Prioritised listsn? Allocate specific times for tasksnnLet’s see how these approached really work. Many, many people use daily to-do lists. You ask yourself “what do I need to do today?” and then write it on your to-do list. In my experience this does improve most people’s use of time, initially. Brian Tracy (author of the Maximum Achievement) suggests that a to-do list can improve your effectiveness by up to 25%. I have seen this happen for a short time.nnRhonda is a great example. She wanted to stop reacting to everything that came her way both at work and in her personal life and to feel more in control. She tried using a to-do list and felt better.nnTHEN things started to change. Her to-do list got longer and longer. The list continued to grow. The list got so long that looking at it, made her feel stressed and under time pressure. Rhonda actually felt overwhelmed by her to-do list – the very tool that was supposed to help her. Rhonda gave up on her have-to-do lists. Her stress levels came down by not using a to-do list.nnRhonda’s story is very similar to many hundreds of people that have been through our coaching or DIY programs.nnThe simple fact is that in the 21st century there are too many tasks to do. You can’t do them all. You will never catch-up. Each day the list grows, the stress builds and you feel worse.nnSome people who have this experience then try prioritising the list. Like Glen. Glen used the A,B,C,D method for prioritising. At the end of the day Glen had added more tasks to his list than he had completed. Glen didn’t feel this was working but he decided to try it for a full week. By the end of the week he had gone past 100 tasks, nearly 50% were ‘A-priority’. Glen considered using A1, A2, A3, but he decided it was too complex.nnPrioritising tasks does NOT help you get things done. And it seems to create more stress and time pressure because you see a growing list of A-priority tasks that are not getting done.nnA to-do list does not help you get more done or manage your time. A to-do list only lets you know all the things that you think you need to do and haven’t done. It is really a have-to-do list. How do you feel about a task when you are told you have to do it?nnAnother method that many people use is to allocate a time to do a task. David is one client that used this approach. He would look at his to-do list and then pick a time to do the next task on the list.nnWell, what do you think happened? The same thing that happens to almost all people who try this. He did NOT do the task at the time allocated. Why? Because “stuff” came up and David didn’t remember the task, or he didn’t remember to look in his diary, or it just didn’t fit in to do the task at that time anymore.nnIt was very clear to me that the majority of people are not able to use these systems to help them improve their time management. The other factor is that most people have far too much to-do than they can actually do in the time available.nnI did some research and uncovered that most time effective people have a simple time management system that takes an hour or so a week to update rather than a complicated system that takes hours to keep up to date each week.nnAll of these people have a system they had worked out for themselves. The systems had some similarities but many differences. nnThe BIGGEST factor I noticed was their use of what I initially called intuitive time management – and this became a major part of time management from the He?rt.nnHere are time management from the He?rt principles. These principles are the foundation for the time management from the He♥rt system.nn1. Let Go - You can’t get everything done. You need accept this is truen2. Responsibility – take full responsibility for how you spend your timen3. Whole Life - Whole in onena. Structure - Use a structure and your intuitionnb. Capacity - Know your capacityn4. Personalize - Develop your personal version of the approachna. Style - Recognise your thinking style and adapt your approach to suit your stylenb. Values - Get clear on your top 5 values and the behaviours that reflect these valuesn5. Instincts - Trust your instinctsn6. Feel Success – success is about how you feel NOT how much you get donen7. Build Your Personal Time Management SystemnnFREE Time management from the He?rt email course at www.t-m-c.net/time-management-system…