If you don’t know where you are going, any road will do!
Goals. So many of us hear that word and cringe. Perhaps you relate goals to New Year’s resolutions, and have had about the same measure of success? Or perhaps you have this nagging feeling that you really need to create some goals, but when you think about it you find it really hard to want things for yourself? Sound familiar?
Why do we procrastinate?
You know you should be doing that important task, but you find yourself creating other things to do that are either more pleasurable or more ‘important’ instead. Well, they are not really more important, who are we kidding! But we will go to extreme lengths to find tasks to distract us from the very things we are avoiding in order to justify the guilty that we are feeling. Some of us even help others to avoid the issues in our own lives. Sound familiar?
How to create successful change
It’s approaching that time of year again when most of us will be creating ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ for 2013. Perhaps you want to exercise more, weigh less, spend more time with your loved ones and find a healthier work life balance? Perhaps you want to start something new or break a bad habit? How wise exactly are we in creating New Year’s resolutions? And what can we do to ensure we succeed this time?
The dangers of inadequate future orientation
Time management isn’t just about being more organised. The science is evolving to understand that time management involves managing ourselves in relation to time, and is in fact the heart of personal management and effectiveness. Yet this terminology sounds fluffy and devoid of meaning due to overuse. Practical solutions are therefore required to assist us in attaining what can appear to be overwhelming ideals and goals.
Parkinson’s law says less is more.. no really!
Parkinson’s law sounds like something out of a medical dictionary, but in time management terms, this adage was made famous by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an article in the Economist magazine in 1995. Simply put, Cyril stated that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,” in other words, the longer you allow yourself to work on a specific task, the longer you will spend working on that specific task. Another way of stating the same principle is.,“The amount of time which one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete the task.”
The Time Clinic interviews Online Marketing Guru Lechelle De Vries!
The Time Clinic recently interviewed Online Marketing Guru Lechelle De Vries, Marketing and Sales Manager of SAbest, to get some really great brand advice for our clients and secondly to find out more about Lechelle’s time management strategies now that she has experienced The Time Clinic!
Creating positive change by appealing to your hedonist
To implement the positive changes we would like to see in order to make ourselves better time managers, we often revert to the ‘stick’ as opposed to the ‘carrot’ approach. And yet, behavioural research indicates that change does not take place when punishment is the motivation! In order for us to be effective and motivated human beings, positive lasting change needs to come from intrinsic or internal motivation. So how do we manage this?
A fantastic time saving gadget for meetings
Let’s face it, meetings take up far too much time in today’s modern age. And a real time waster is struggling to type up minutes or interpret our poorly scrawled notes after the meeting in order to complete our tasks and projects.
Using music for motivation
Struggling to find the motivation to tackle an unpleasant task? Add some music.
McGill University in Montreal have conducted studies that reveal that our brains are stimulated to produce the feel good hormone ‘dopamine’ when listening to music that appeals to us.
Better sleep for better performance – Part One
If we wish to improve our time management, we have to take a more holistic approach and examine both the biological and psychological factors that prevent us from performing optimally. Adequate sleep is paramount to personal effectiveness. Insomnia and inadequate sleep are big problems for people who wish to be more effective, and depletes us of the mental and physical energy we need to face daily challenges.
Efficient or effective? Why understanding the difference is so important.
Efficient versus effect. Too very similar words. Both are used commonly in the workplace, and we often underestimate how the subtleties between them can mean the difference between success and stress.
There is a common misconception amongst managers that staff need to become more efficient. Time management courses often fail to deliver results by focusing on how to increase efficiency, and hence the amount of work you do within the shortest possible time.
Better sleep for better performance – Part two
Insomnia and inadequate rest is detrimental to anyone’s performance, on both a physical and mental level. In our previous article, we discussed why it is important to understand the biochemistry of sleep and we listed some vitamins, herbs and other supplements that can be extremely effective. In this second part, we shall now examine other mechanisms you can employ, both psychological and logistical, that will also assist.
Is that procrastination in your eye?
The eyes are the windows to the soul, or so they say. But what on earth do our eyes have to do with time management?
An interesting study from Orebro University reveals facets of our personality are as deep seated as our very biology.
Down with the To-do list!
Do you hate making a To-do list everyday? You’re not alone. The truth is there is only a small portion of the population who use To-do lists effectively, and it has more to do with personality than discipline.
Why Time management doesn’t work
“Time management is a misnomer. The real challenge is in managing ourselves.” – Dr. Stephen Covey
To state that the field of time management and its conventional methods are largely ineffective is a bold statement indeed, yet time and time again we find ourselves falling back into the same traps, the same bad habits and the same self defeating patterns.
