Alongside good health, time ranks as the most precious of our possessions. It is also the subject of many an aphorism, as the wise old owls warn that ‘time lost is never found again’, that ‘time and tide wait for no one’ and that ‘time is money’!

Of course, it’s also true that whilst the bad news is that ‘time flies’, the good news is that you can be the pilot. That is, good time management entails taking control over how you spend your time and making sensible decisions about the way you use it.

The ‘Bad Habits’ of Time Management

The pursuit of good time management practices starts with an appreciation of how you’re wasting it. The most common ‘time traps’ that many of us fall into are:

• Pursuing Pleasure: There is a real problem in persistently pursuing pleasure, by putting the fun, exciting, interesting and easy things first, whilst deferring the boring, dull, difficult (and often important) tasks until later. That is, it is ultimately problematic to focus only upon what we enjoy, at the expense of the real priorities. When the ‘chickens come home to roost’ and the essential tasks haven’t been addressed, all hell can break loose, often to the detriment of our health and reputation.
• The ‘Fast Lane’ Addiction: For many people, the time management problem arises from a preference for living fast and furiously, in the hope of beating boredom. That is, by responding only to the imminent deadline, the job gets done in tandem with an exhilarating adrenaline rush. However, this often means that it’s done in a haphazard and panicky way, with no time left over for double-checking those all-important details. The ‘being busy as a way of life’ mode, allows the adrenaline addict to rush from one hectic task to the next, whilst taking on more and more work. However, there are only 1,440 minutes in a day, that reduce to 1,000 when we deduct sleeping, washing, dressing and eating type times. Yet again, the implications of this approach to life, for both your job and your health, are far from ideal.
• To Be Or Not To Be?: Next up in the ‘time trap’ rankings is the procrastinator, who simply puts things off (for now!), albeit at every opportunity. Hence, the agony and the anxiety – of the accumulating assignments – persists as a feature of daily life, as the impending project deadlines hang over one’s head like the sword of Damocles. The calamitous consequence thereof is that worry levels increase as time passes, whilst the workload accumulates all the while.
• The ‘Headless Chicken’: This animal gallivants through life without having clear priorities or plans as to their preferred attainments or direction. As a result, too much time is spent on tasks that are not important. Flitting from task to task, without reference to priorities or adherence to considered plans, is yet another recipe for damaged health and reputation, alongside a downward spiral of panic and anxiety. It’s also unlikely to ease one’s mind when reflecting on life’s achievements when the ‘death bed’ comes calling – as it inevitably will!
• Persistent Interruptions: The time trap created by repeated interruptions comes from two sources. The first are those that we allow others to create and the second are those that we create for ourselves. The former come in the ‘let’s have coffee’ or a ‘chat’ format, whilst the latter commonly arise via the host of communication technologies now available (e.g. the mobile phone). The bottom line is that, at any time, there are endless ways in which we can be interrupted and distracted. However, the decision not ‘to get down to it’ and to focus on the priorities, is ultimately ours and ours alone.
• The ‘Doormat’: The ‘doormat’ dilemma, whereby one responds to others’ (as opposed to our own) priorities, is often sourced in a lack of assertiveness and self-esteem. The pressure to please others - at the expense of dealing with and delivering on our own priorities – is overwhelming for some. Of course, the problem here is that whilst there may be the instant gratification of granting others’ requests, this evaporates when the time comes to deliver on the commitments that have previously been given to that person and many others besides!
• Waiting: It’s estimated that we spend up to 20 per cent of our lifetime waiting. For example, some sources claim that the average person spends about 43 days ‘on hold’ in their lives, via automated customer service answering machines! It’s also estimated that the average person spends 5 years waiting in line and queuing, with about 6 months thereof at traffic lights and in tailbacks (e.g. the M50). Unfortunately, these spaces are rarely filled productively.
• The ‘Perfectionist’: This personality agonises over the ‘fine points’, whilst missing the bigger picture. The failure, to allocate time and energy to the ‘important’, at the expense of the (often) irrelevant, is yet another costly time trap to be avoided.
• Meetings: When it comes to meetings, the actor John Cleese puts it accurately and succinctly: ‘meetings, bloody meetings’! His verdict is a reflection on all those poorly run meetings that proliferate our lives. On top of their frequent failure to reach appropriate decisions, they waste time and damage morale and mental health.
• The D.I.Y. Enthusiast: This personality refuses to call in the help or support of those much better placed – and often willing - to do the job. It’s a shortcoming that can be attributed to a lack of assertiveness or even arrogance. Either way, it doesn’t see delegation as a legitimate or appropriate option, as the hours get whiled away, often spent ‘reinventing the wheel’.

The ‘Good Habits’ of Time Management

Effective time management is a habit. Hence, the trick is to break the bad habit, create the good habit and stick to it! Of course, this is easier said than done, but the rich rewards to be reaped make it worthwhile – as all the evidence suggests that you’re only going to get ‘one shot’ at this thing called ‘life’. So, the best advice is to practice, practice and practice (again) the good habits, until they become automatic and the rewards start to kick in, ultimately reinforcing the merit of persisting with them. In time, it becomes apparent that the ‘pain is worth the gain’.

The main good time management habits worthy of your consideration are:

• Keep A ‘To Do’ List: A ‘to do’ list can be maintained in any one of a variety of forms. What works best for you? Could it be your laptop, diary, tablet, iPad or phone? Whichever or whatever it is, it’s best to keep it portable, so that it’s always beside you, serving as a timely reminder of what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by! Keeping the list at hand should help prevent you from going ‘off track’ every time another task comes to mind. That is, the latest addition can just be added to the existing ‘to do’ list and prioritised as appropriate.
• Clear Priorities: It’s essential to have one’s life aspirations and responsibilities prioritised, enabling one to distinguish tasks that are urgent, important and not so important. This can provoke both philosophical and practical questions of consequence. These may include ‘is this the best use of my time, given my hopes and dreams?’ or ‘is this the best use of my time, given the importance and/or urgency of those other tasks that are on my ‘to do’ list?’.
• Say ‘No’ And/Or Delegate: A key question to be answered, both on reflection and ‘in the moment’, for effective time management, is: ‘what happens if I don’t do it?’ The consequences thereof should inform the urgency and importance of ‘letting go’ entirely, or availing of the delegation option.
• Bite-Size Chunks: The prospect of delivering upon a sizable assignment is often enough to put one into ‘freeze frame’ mode. That is, the job is so big that you daren’t and/or just don’t know where to start. However, the trick is to appreciate that large and/or difficult projects are best tackled in small chunks. So, it makes sense to break them down into small achievable blocs, set to a defined schedule. Related thereto, to minimise feelings of anxiety, the best time to start is NOW. This is also an effective approach to overcoming the aforementioned procrastination problem. Once started, the satisfaction from progressing the difficult job starts to materialise. Allowing the fear factor to progress the project, rather than delaying the dreaded moment, is the best way forward. At the heel of the hunt, it is much better for the project (and your mental health) to have a rough draft to be polished up when your scheduled ‘to do’ list allows’, rather than starting (too late) from a blank canvas.
• Schedule Your Energy: Different people have different ‘best times’. So, it makes sense to tackle the critical priorities when you’re at your best (e.g. first thing in the morning). On this basis, one saves the routine tasks for when the energy levels are low (e.g. during the post-lunch ‘graveyard shift’).
• Find A Hideaway: A ‘hideaway’ is where you do the all-important work that maximises the value of your powers of concentration. It’s where you work most effectively. Having cleared it with your ‘next-in-line’ and putting up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign allows you to concentrate exclusively and intensely on those tasks that are most consequential. This is why some people try to allocate a portion of the working week to working at home.
• Wait Productively: This is the trick whereby you always have a manageable task to hand, so that ‘waiting time’ isn’t actually wasted, as you ‘kill two birds with the one stone’. For example, my cousin claims that she learned fluent French whilst sitting on airplanes!
• Schedule It Once: This advice is aimed mainly at the procrastinator, urging them - where possible - to deal with each task once, but once only. That is, stop deferring decisions that simply allow tasks to build up unnecessarily. As a result, the desk gets cleared and the email list evaporates! For example, many (effective) time managers schedule ‘email time’ daily and stick to it (e.g. first thing in the morning, after lunch and on finishing work).  When skimming through the list, it makes sense to see what’s important and/or urgent and to delete, deal with and/or add to the ‘to do’ list as appropriate.  The trick here is – yet again - to ensure that you don’t allow others’ agendas to rule your day!

Well, that’s that – my ‘to do’ list tells me that it’s now time for ‘quality time’. Bring it on, I say!

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Dr Gerry McMahon is speaking at the workshop, Successful Selection Interviewing, taking place on 9th May 2019 at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Dublin Airport