So much is said about the value of effective time-keeping and for good reason. But how easy is it for those good intentions that you brought away from your Time management course to get forgotten about?

We would like to revisit the role that commitment and attitude have as the driving forces behind good time management, and how if you get that part right, the rest is easy.

Here are some tips from us.

1) Draw up a scale of Levels of Commitment from 10 to 1 – where 10 is “I am totally committed to achieve this, whatever”, 1 is “Over my dead body” or words to that effect, and 6 is “It’s very important to me”. You may want to include words/phrases like “determined”, “no.1 priority”, “important”, “obligated”, “doubtful”, and “reluctant” when defining the levels of commitment for your scale.

2) Now look at the list of actions that you have for today. These can be business or personal actions. How likely are you to get these done based on these levels of commitment? Be honest about this part 🙂

3) Experience proves that you will only action tasks for which your commitment is at level 6 or above. The other things on the list will not get done and will eventually fall off the list because the commitment is just not there. The time spent in thinking about not doing them will be wasted, and activities will start to control you and possibly will begin to keep you awake at night.

4)How about your colleagues at work? What tasks are on their list? Again, any actions that are perceived to be doubtful, unclear, not useful will get carried over time and time again. More wasted time will be spent in reacting to the consequences of not doing these things (as some will in fact be important or urgent), stress will start to play a major role, and both you and they will start to feel out of control.

5)So here’s what we suggest:
* Above all a positive attitude when defining goals with your colleagues (or family)-this will affect the quality of how each person experiences the time taken to achieve any related tasks. Positive attitude and commitment from leaders will affect those around them who, in turn, will influence and be influenced by the effectiveness of time management as a whole.

* A flight plan will get from A to B and will help colleagues see their part in getting to the final destination. Involve people at all stages of planning before you get started to get the best possible plan in place plus ownership and commitment from each team member to achieve goals.

* In your team, think of who does which task best and delegate the parts to the appropriate people. This will encourage individual committment in itself as the tasks are being done by the people who are best/quliafied and/or most motivated to do so, and by giving praise and support as the plan evolves, you will make the resulting success contagious. Focus on the preferred roles of your colleagues and use their natural flair whenever possible. (Bring in external resources only if you do not have them within your team and get agreement from your team that this is a necessary step, otherwise you will lose commitment very quickly.)

* Record how much time being saved and use the time that you have saved in celebrating with your team (for brainstorming creative or fun ideas, chilling out time together, and/or rewarding with early finishes). You’ll be amazed at how motivating that will be. Above all, you will be well on the way to achieving a very healthy work life balance for you and your team and your business performance will improve as a result of you and your colleagues looking after one of the most precious resources that we have. Time.

Thank you for sharing any tips/comments that you have too with us too.