When I was a senior vice president of Learning, time management was the most requested training my team had for almost 18 years.
I had an awesome team, engaged leadership, and passionate participants. We built custom courses, experiences, videos, eLearning, and awareness events—yet the needle barely moved.
I know many, if not most, of you can relate. Teams are burning out, people are being stretched to maximum capacity, and experienced colleagues are struggling with time management—some for the first time in their careers.
I have spent almost 18 months since leaving the corporate world reflecting on this single challenge, and I’ve come to a conclusion: Time management training is broken.
The most common time management technique remains the Eisenhower Matrix. It is rooted in 1954 and was popularized by Stephen Covey in 1989. That was before most of us had computers, cell phones, instant messaging, social media, apps, and more.
Covey shared that time management theories evolve over time and emerge in “waves.” So approaches to time management must evolve over time. The way we work today has massively changed since 1989. It is time to heed his guidance and continue to evolve how we manage our time.
Time management training revolves around a single assumption: that we can organize every incoming task into some form of priorities. This reactive approach is impossible in a world where many of us receive 300 to 400 e-mails per day, 100-plus meeting requests per month, countless instant messages, and other demands on our attention.
I refer to the time we currently live in as the time of “interruption overload.” It requires a shift from reactive time management approaches to proactive system thinking that eliminates interruptions before they happen.
4-STEP SOLUTION
There is hope and there is a way to significantly change the way we control our time and focus. We need to help our learners find proactive solutions that truly create impact.
STEP 1: List the interruptions
Interruptions come from three sources (it’s OK that some will be a combination of two or more sources):
1. People: Meeting requests, FYI e-mails, people knocking on your door or sending a text message asking for “just two minutes”
2. Technology: Newsletters, notifications, software reminders, alerts, social media, push notifications, and more
3. Process: Approval requests, signatures, signoffs, inefficient forms and workflows To start the process of reclaiming your focus, create a list of tasks and interruptions that are low priority but demand your time and energy.
STEP 2: Define the root cause (WWW)
We often misplace the blame for interruptions. We claim that “e-mail is a problem” and that “meetings kill my time,” but an e-mail never sent an e-mail and a meeting never booked a meeting.
To truly define the root cause, break down each of the interruptions you created above into root causes by creating sentences using the following format:
- WHO does
- WHAT
- WHEN or WHY
You’ll find that each interruption likely has several sentences. Here are some examples related to e-mail:
- Clients send e-mail to ask for updates.
- My boss sends e-mail to ask for updates.
- My team e-mails to ask for help.
You will find themes within the root causes. For example, instead of being overwhelmed by countless e-mails, you will see that there are only 30 to 40 reasons why you get an e-mail and already have some insight on how to change.
STEP 3: Define your influence
In the world of interruption overload, the solution lies in something that may appear to defy conventional wisdom: We must carve out time to create systems to eliminate the interruptions we have the most control over (as opposed to “just” handling the urgent interruptions we face daily).
For every root cause you defined, categorize them as follows:
- Full control (easiest to solve): Newsletters, push notifications, and social media are all interruptions you have full control over.
- Influenceable: The way your peers, customers, or boss communicate with you may be changeable if you work with them to create alternatives and define norms/best practices.
- Perceived no control: You may not be able to change them today—or ever.
STEP 4: Build systems and take action
Take your list, starting at the items you have full control over, and create proactive systems to handle each. Here are some examples that worked for me (of course, your solutions will be unique):
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Covey wasn’t wrong, but the scale of interruptions we face today is vastly different than his 36-year-old insight. To regain time and focus and overcome interruption overload, we need to find proactive solutions to eliminate interruptions before we can use tools such as the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize what’s left. Let’s get started—the clock is ticking!
