5 Signs It's Time For A Character Adjustment

At birth, we come into this world with limitless possibilities from within. From that point on, we begin to learn limitations. From the early stages of life that finds us standing in line and walking in single file throughout elementary school, to our current day of being forced to choose between the better of only a few horrible performing cable companies as our ISP (Internet service provider), we are conformed to a life of limits.

The more we practice limitations, the more we discover deficiencies in our lives. Most of these deficiencies have been encouraged by certain patterns we’ve fallen into from a young age.

The good news is we can minimize deficiencies to any degree we wish! How? Using the principles of time management. Ugh. I know, it’s that heavy responsibility-type phrase no one likes to hear or come to grips with.

Hard to get around the importance of it because there are so many benefits of effective time management. We must face it because the lack of time management is a huge deficiency contributor. Especially detrimental for many budding entrepreneurs. It’s also a problem to the employed worker; however, the structure of the workplace is set up as a web of deficiencies anyway so an individual’s bad habits aren’t always singled out. Besides, at the end of the scheduled pay period, the employee still gets paid.

Did I lose you on the statement that the workplace is a web of deficiencies? Consider this: I once worked at a company where some departments within a division operated 24/7 due of the nature of the business. In those departments, there were three shifts to accommodate the needs of the customers. Each shift had one supervisor for a staff of ten or so people. That shift supervisor, plus a couple other shift supervisors were then watched over by two (not one, but two) more supervisors, who reported to a manager, who reported to a director, and on and on. Ingrained deficiency!

Back to lack of time management because I experienced an incident recently that led me to blog about this topic. In my quest to secure a certain client, this person led me to call them a minimum of ten times (I lost track after that) with each call either going to voicemail or that person apologizing profusely why they didn’t have time to talk at that moment. This wasn’t even a lead initiated by me. It was determined they needed my services, so I was referred to them by a mutual colleague whom they know and respect. Therefore, it didn’t seem as though I was chasing a dead lead—at least not until the sixth or seventh attempt.

However, at some point it became clear to me this business of putting them on my to-do list over and over was taking away from my own never-ending pursuit of efficiency. Their severe lack of time management was the very reason they needed to MAKE the time to meet with me. My chasing them without an opportunity to have even a two-minute conversation was not going to bring that realization alive for them. But what will?

It will require an intervention for people to change this bad habit of mismanaged time. I’m not talking about a spiritual intervention, although I’m not knocking that either. I had an intervention (a natural one, not supernatural) years ago that helped set me on the right path to better time management. Honestly though, I’m still far from mastering it in my daily operations.

My intervention came from a roommate of mine back in my 20’s. She and I would occasionally meet after work for happy hours. One particular time, I was late leaving my job. As the supervisor of my department, I couldn’t just leave right at five o’clock, but that particular day a problem kept me there way longer than anticipated, which kept my roommate waiting at a bar way longer than she appreciated.

She was a very attractive girl who probably got hit on more often than normally because she was sitting there alone. When I finally arrived at our meeting place, she was furious. Mind you, this was a pre-cell phone era (hard to believe life without that thing being glued to our hands) so I had no way of warning her of my lateness.

Guess what though? Her outrage at me wasn’t so much because of that one particular time being late, but that she said I did it often. What? I did? I hadn’t noticed. She said something during that conversation that has stuck with me for 30 years. She told me that my lateness was a total disrespect of other people’s time and feelings. Ouch!

My roommate was so right! That is disrespect in its highest form. Lateness, deficiencies in time management, and a blatant disregard for other people’s time all indicate a lack of integrity in a person’s character. Do you want to be known as one who lacks integrity? I sure didn’t so I cleaned up my act.

As I pointed out before, I haven’t totally mastered all the principles of time management yet. I even have to admit during my single motherhood days in the mid to late 90’s, I failed miserably at time management; reflecting on the days I zoomed down the street in my car chasing the school bus that we missed by just seconds. My children’s pick up spot was about two miles from the house so they got a fast and furious joy ride every morning, especially when I had to beat the bus to its next stop! (Oh the memories!)

If you’re operating in deficiencies in your work life and social life, take inventory of your time management. Don’t wait on someone to call you on the carpet about it. I am so grateful for my roommate telling me off that day. She and I were very close friends and I’m glad she felt she could tell me that without it ruining our friendship. Although now that I think about it, it was probably the couple of drinks she had while waiting on me that gave her the boldness to say what she said. Either way, it worked.

I know for a fact most people won’t confront you about your inefficiencies. A friend of mine was a chronically late person. She was extremely late for almost everything—even two hours late to her own baby shower (some of her guests left before she got there). What did most people do about it? Joked and poked fun at her about it most times and she always laughed it off. Perhaps no one, including me, sat her down and told her that we felt truly disrespected by such action on a regular basis.

So don’t wait for others to tell you you lack integrity. Take inventory of your actions today. Use this little checklist of 5 signs to determine if you need to clean up your effective time management act. For example:

1. Do you set your clocks 10 or so minutes ahead to psych yourself out about the real time?
2. Do you find that people give you the starting time of an event as one hour before the actual start time?
3. Do you have items on your to-do list that are carried over to a new list and then again to a newer list?
4. Do you find yourself arriving late to work, appointments, or events more than once a week, blaming it on traffic (even though you go that same route all the time and know the nature of the beast)?
5. Do you incur late fees on bills not so much because you don’t have the money to pay them but because you simply forget to pay them?

There are some serious consequences, or symptoms, to poor time management. Here are just 5 very damaging ones:

1. Stress. I could end the list with just this one consequence and it should be enough to make us all get our act together! Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you know by now that stress leads to obesity (especially in women’s midsection), poor health, even death. So, I don’t need to harp on that. We just need to eliminate it at all costs!
2. Poor diet. If we’re not managing our time properly, lack of exercise and fast foods quickly become a part of our routine. I made a life-saving decision almost three years ago when I became a rawtarian. Eating only raw, plant-based foods cleared up a debilitating auto immune disease I struggled with for 12 years, delivered me from pizza shops and fast food restaurants once and for all (haven’t stepped foot in one since), and forced me to plan time in my schedule to prepare healthy meals and exercise.
3. Lack of finances. Improper time control leads to improper management of finances—no ifs ands or buts. I already mentioned late fees. Studies show Americans pay out over $25 billion in banking overdraft fees each year. Also think about all the overpriced items that are purchased when someone is in a hurry, as opposed to them taking time to price compare and shop around.
4. Low quality relationships. Especially for entrepreneurs and small business owners, we tend to wear so many hats that it’s easy to justify being a workaholic. At some point, though, we have to ask ourselves, how much are we getting accomplished during those long work hours, and how much of "refueling" me time are we cheating ourselves out of? Multi-tasking, due to wearing the many hats of entrepreneurialism cannot always be avoided; however, we have to honestly address the issue of its ineffectiveness. Multi-tasking was designed for the 9-5 worker. It is not a practice highly successful people adopt. They know how to give family, friends and loved ones uninterrupted quality time and still make money.
5. Procrastination. There really needs to be no extended conversation about this. Procrastination keeps people from seeking medical attention until it’s sometimes too late. Procrastination causes people to miss out on great investments that could change their life in a positive manner. Procrastination haunts us every day. Procrastination almost kept me from posting this blog because I’ve run out of time to re-read it for grammatical errors (so please overlook any errors until I have time later to come back to this).

This list of time management strategies could go on and on but I think you get the picture. Deficiencies and limitations in our life are there by our own design, no one else’s. One way we can control those deficiencies is by taking control of our time. When we properly control our time, we are manifesting better health, an increase in finances, and more loving and productive relationships.

The choice is yours!

RAWspectfully yours,

Terri

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