As truck drivers, as my colleague Gary Buchs wrote last week and as I’ve emphasized before myself, time is our most precious commodity. Our lives are governed by it – from the amount of time we sleep and work in a day, to the time we actually get to spend with family and friends. It can be a fleeting commodity. If one is not careful, we can go from wishing we could grow up faster as we did when we were children to wondering where the time went as we lie on our death beds.
As scripture says, time is but a vapor, a shadow, a breath, and it is gone, for we are only yesterday.
One of the greatest strengths we can foster is a capability for effective time management, and with electronic logs this ability has become critical. We are a hectic species, easily preoccupied with new ways of carving out more time, and productivity. But we are also easily distracted by the newest gadget, guru or tool to promise a few more minutes. While some prove to be beneficial, others often propagate fairytales, illusions that will eat up our time and make others question our time management skills.
We need to look at these illusions, discard them and concentrate on what is truly is productive. After all, the clock only stops when we are pushing daisies.
Illusion No. 1: Better time management will increase performance. A fascinating fact is that time management and increased performance show little correlation. In fact, the connection is quite pathetic. Performance equates to a whole lot more than just time. Adopting the mantra “work smarter, not harder” is much more effective for performance and time management both, because performance is not about how much you get done but about the positive influence it has on the bottom line and others.
It is better to focus on quality over quantity. That, of course, does not mean we ignore time management. Effective time management is associated with a positive state of mind and well-being. This happens in the cognitive reframing process I’ve written about before it various ways – reframing a situation toward effective outcomes helps us identify and change the reality of those situations and of experiences, ideas and emotions. Thus, we shouldn't be in the game solely of increased productivity, but rather staying productive while also reducing stress.
Illusion No. 2: Managing your time equates to success. If you allow too much on your plate at once, it really doesn’t matter how efficient you are with time management – you will never have the time to finish everything efficiently or match quality standards. Most time management advice involves practices, methods or systems to manage your responsibilities and schedules. The most effective way to increase performance without adding stress is filtering. That is, learning to say no or being selective in what you commit your time to.
