Still trying stuff out to improve my time management...

I am not the world's best manager of time. In fact, I once had something of a crisis of conscience about running Time Management workshops, on the basis that I was preaching something I fail to practice (or at least, fail to practice very well). However, my inspirational coach, Ann Bowen-Jones, remarked, almost in passing, that we teach best what we most need to learn. So that was all right.

And I had some feedback this week from someone who had attended one of my time management workshops some 14 years ago that it had proved very valuable and was still something she remembered clearly and worked with, and, indeed, had developed.



But for myself, I still see it as work in progress.  So I continue to try new things. Today I have been working at home, and I was very conscious of the risk of the day slipping by with relatively little achieved (it being a Friday and all...)

So I set my phone alarm to go off every half hour, to prompt me to check that I was doing something worthwhile each time it went off.  That has proved very useful; though I suspect that the law of diminishing returns would cut in if I tired that every day.

Something else I have tried over the last few months is being really rigorous about making time for meditation, as I mentioned a few weeks ago (here).  That has proved very valuable.  Oddly, the busier I have been, the more I have noticed the meditation paradox: stopping for fifteen minutes of recollection really does enable you to move through a busy day with more calmness, and to achieve more important things.

A third, and related, thing has been striving to maintain a high awareness of the present moment, and the importance of that. Two people from quite separate parts of my life had recommended de Caussade's book: The Sacrament of the Present Moment. It is not an easy text, but he is onto something profound here, about detachment and, well, presence.

And finally, I am trying to maintain my habit of reviewing the week each Friday afternoon, and completing my reflective learning journal: that touches on all sorts of issues, of course, but how I have spent my time is at the heart of it.

I'm always keen to learn from others, so if you have any top tips for time management, do let me know!

But I must dash: my phone alarm is going off, and I've a reflective journal entry to write yet...