This is Laura Lee Rose, a business and life coach that specializes in professional development, time management, project management and work-life balance strategies. In my Professional Development Toolkit package , I go into professional development and real-world IT topics in detail. If you are interested in more training in these areas, get signed up
Many of us have complained about the lack of time at one time or another. If you are consistently running out of time, there may be a few things that you are unknowing doing. Some of the top hidden time wasters are below. We often fall into their trap because we don’t readily recognize them.
- Allowing things to repeat without investigation and/or fixing
- Not recognizing opportunities that propel us forward
- Not reusing our own accomplishments to our advantage
- Spending time on unimportant items
- Spending all our time making and putting out fires (creating critical/ stop production situations for ourselves).
- Using imagined dependencies to stall us
- Working hard to stay in the same place; using energy to keep the status quo
- Not asking for exactly what you want
- Complaining with no explicit call to action
- Spending energy and attention well past the benefit
In my Professional Development Toolkit, I discuss how to get around all of the above.
But a quick remedy is to recognize that ‘item’ is an anagram for ‘time’ (the words use the same letters but in different order). Remember this and then every time an item crosses
your desk, ask yourself: “Is this Item worthy of your Time?”
Let’s take the last item 10: Spending energy and attention well past the benefit.
This could include certain tasks at work, your current position, some work or home projects, hobbies and even some people. As you evolve and develop you should out grow things like jobs, hobbies and even certain people. The games and interests that you had at 5 years old are not the same interests you have today. It is the same as your continue to progress through your life. But sometimes we stay too long in the same place. Perhaps it is out of a sense of misguided loyalty or perhaps simply because it is comfortable and familiar. Either way, the longer you stay focused on an item beyond it’s benefit to you — the more time you are wasting. This is even true if the item seems like a worthwhile task.
For example: You would like to get $15 for your old wooden bench-swing. You decide to make it more presentable to assure your $15 asking price. You sand it; you stain it; you oil it; you and add decorative stencils. You now have spent 4 days on it to acquire $25; when having it quickly power-washed (as you are already power-washing your deck) would have accomplished the same goal.
Keeping your ROI (return on investment) in mind, “Is this Item worthy of your Time?”
I go into more detail in the Professional Development Toolkit. This DVD set contains practices and exercises regarding time management, career management, work life balance strategies and how to better quantify your performance to the company’s bottom line. for information on how to purchase this toolkit, contact:
vConferenceOnline.com/Bits on the Wire, Inc.
6420 E. Broadway, Suite A300
Tucson, AZ 85710
520-760-2400 or (877) 853-9158
info@vconferenceonline.com
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If you haven’t taken advantage of your introductory time management coaching session, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info