I've been thinking through time management a lot over the last year or so. As we get, or at least feel, busier we spiral more and more into a culture of distractedness. I turned to Google and eventually landed on this article from Harvard Business Review: Time Management Training Doesn't Work.
This quote stood out to me as something I hear and see from friends and colleagues: "As a leader, how often do you feel that you are spending too much time working in the business rather than working on the business?"
The article suggests the solution for getting to work more on the business has three components:
- Clarity around role priorities rather than specific task priorities.
- Attention management skills rather than “time management” skills.
- A comprehensive workflow management system.
These three things are so simple, yet I look at a lot of workplace and family cultures, and see any one or more of these missing.
The small shift to attention management vs time management is the one I'm going to try and bring alive for myself first. To experiment and see what happens when I think about my attention as the scarce resource rather than my time and seek to optimize it.
Being a Force for Good 