Time management: Fundamentals that change fortunes

Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade! -Anthony Robbins

In Africa, you can be sure everything will start late which is bad for business and life. We need a transformed narrative.

In the hundred percent commitment to personal excellence, there are various strategies that coaches challenge a student with.

One of the units in managing oneself more effectively is the mastery of the concept of time management. Sure, there are those thinkers who have said that it is not time management but self-management or more aptly it is mind management.

That time management is the management of oneself very well so that one becomes the best version of themselves.

What are some of the fundamentals and principles can one use to change their fortune?

High achievers utilise courage and confidence so as to maximise time expenditure. To protect one’s minutes, one needs to espouse bravery.

This means the ability to know when any activity doesn’t fit into one’s goals, vision, mission and core values or strategic direction.

It means they know that something is just a time waster of the highest order. For us to perform at the highest level we must stop people or activities that will erode our capacity to produce more results.

We must frankly know our time wasters. Top performers who have some audacity to list their time wasters and consequently tackle them ruthlessly.

Writing goals down. As a trainer, I consistently insist on writing of goals in an ever-present notebook.

Execution is critically significant for seconds ethicists. Actions speak louder than words. When we are bold we act on goals without procrastination.

A-listers have a penchant for prompt actions. This also means smart decision-making. Which means stellar resource optimisation.

Do you have people popping in the office to own authentic chagrin? That means you have communicated your availability.

Deliberate delegation is another management tool that one can use in getting more out of time. It means that some work is given to others especially when you are playing strategic and tactical roles.

But bear in mind as the adage goes you can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility.

Why should you and I invest in time efficacy? The most obvious reason is that we become highly productive.

When we manage ourselves quite well we get more fruits out of our purpose, goals and objectives. If we want to overcome abject poverty we must get into the ethics of time utilisation.

We become more creative and innovative when our ethics on time is well aligned. It translates into lateral thinking.

The exponent of time prudence will tell you that it is a form of stress management. Stress is being overwhelmed. When we understand time through planning and execution orientation we prevent being harried and saddled with unnecessary bad feelings.

In fact, those people who have a penchant for being stressed are poor time programmers.

Mr Magoma is an award-winning HR specialist and trainer | [email protected]