Time Management - Drive to Authenticate
We look at the Drive to Authenticate where good time management will help those Driven to Authenticate to get things done, sticking to their promises – (congruence between words and actions), being useful and producing essential outcomes.
First let’s review the overall view on time management featured in Stephen Covey’s “First Things First” providing a simple framework for time management based on a quadrant prioritising workload (attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower).
For a more personalised ID approach to time management there are great strategies to work with dependent upon your dominant Drive. Here we look at the Drive to Authenticate.
- It’s important to think of time management not as time management, but as “perception” and “congruency” i.e are others perceiving you the way you want them to perceive you?
Ask yourself:
- What do I want people to think of me?
- What are my values?
- Are my current actions true to those?
- Is that what people currently think of me?
Work towards bringing perception and reality into alignment. This will then impact on your time management effectiveness. I.e tap into a deeper, more relevant (for you) motivator!
- The concept of delegation does not work for you! You need to “assign” the task or, to use a trade-person’s analogy, “sub-contract” the work. For example, when a builder is overseeing construction, he employs subcontractors to do various roles. If say, the plumber does not meet expectations, other trades people do not cover the gaps. Nor does the builder step in and make good the work. Instead, another plumber may be hired to get the work done as that particular function had been assigned by the builder to somebody else. Remember “who” not “how”!! The qualification to this is having confidence in the person you assign a task to!
- Another vulnerability for your time management is the issue of quality. Specifically, by reworking your definition of quality to match your “customer’s expectations” (instead of your own standards or views on how things should be done) you will avoid going beyond your customer’s requirements.
Your natural definition of quality is usually to provide a level of workmanship that in your words, “will not fall over” i.e it will ensure the test of time! But what if that particular feature doesn’t matter? You will have wasted your time… and wastage is not something that fits very comfortably with your Instinct to Authenticate!
As an example, imagine the wastage for someone who put all their energy into building computer hardware to last 10 years!
- Look at your “priority list” from the perspective of usefulness – what will be the most useful task down to the least useful – perhaps confirming this with the points featured in the “Covey Quadrant” above.
Next time we’ll deal with the Drive to Complete.
If you would like to discuss this or other ID and Connection Matters call or text me on 0417 952 183 or email mike@leaderconnect.com.au.
“Be yourself – everyone else is taken”
Oscar Wilde