To discover more about Time Demands and the new possibilities it opens up, see the following page on the topic of Time Demands
Tasks vs. Time Demands, Being a Victim vs. Responsible
As I mentioned in a prior post on the topic of time demands, this distinction is one that we at 2Time Labs were forced to create when the old definition of a task just simply stopped working.
One of the major differences has to do with agency – where do time demands come from?
I’m reminded of the following quotes, the first of which is from A Course in Miracles:
“The default way of thinking about conversation is that it is ‘just talk’ and that it is is a poor cousin of Action. But that misunderstands the formative power of language. My promise is to bring you a way of utilizing language so that what you need is created rather than ‘just talked about’.” David Firth TEDxCSU video
The power of using the concept of a “time demand” is not just a matter of labeling “the stuff we have to do” with a different name. New language opens up new meaning according to David Firth, and also a possibility. Here’s the definition we share in our classes:
A time demand is an individual commitment to complete an action in the future.
Implied, but not stated in this definition is a new kind of agency or responsibility. No time demands exist until you, the individual, bring them into being. Picture this – nothing is there, and all of a sudden you create a time demand, triggered by a conversation, memory, television advertisement, etc. Someone else sees the same ad and nothing happens, demonstrating that your willpower is required to create a time demand each and every time.
Some people in my programs tell me that their boss or spouse creates time demands, and I ask them not to confuse the trigger with the source. You can always elect to refuse a request, while accepting the consequences. Or you can simply ignore it. Failing that, you could quit the job or get divorced. Ultimately, you even have a choice whether to live or not.
Something psychological happens when we create a time demand, however, and it always involves some obligation. When it gets created in your mind, it includes some action to take, by definition. General commitments (to one’s family for example) are not time demands, but a promise made to oneself to pick up the milk on the way home certainly is.
One the other hand, when you don’t have the distinction at work in your way of being, you are left in a delusion that the stuff flying at you to be done everyday is out of your control, like being caught in the middle of a blizzard in which each time demand is a snowflake.
In their experience, they are victims. The best they can do is struggle and fight to stay alive against an onslaught of overwhelming data, information, requirements, invitations, obligations, promises, etc.
It’s what we do: sign up for every newsletter in sight and then complain about getting too many messages while griping that we don’t have enough time to read them all.
The great thing about taking responsibility for _all_ the time demands we create is that doing so empowers us to stop creating so many. At the same time we can start a serious efort to manage the ones we do create.
This isn’t ordinary thinking, but it’s the start of a transformation.
If you examine your day, you’ll see that your mind is always creating time demands. At the moment of creation, your mind simultaneously might tag on some more information: a likely start date/time, the duration, plus some level of commitment to get it complete. You may also add other information such as who else must be involved, where it is to be performed, other resources that are required, etc.
Skillful professionals don’t allow all this information to float around in their heads – they immediately capture it somewhere so that they can keep track of it outside their heads. They appreciate the fact that it’s much less risky to do so.
What do you think?
P.S. This distinction is at the core of my book – Bill’s discovery of time demands is where everything good starts happening for him. It’s so important, I have created a new page here on the website to bring together my most important posts, a podcast and a video on the topic of Time Demands.
Why You Need to Understand Your Current Skills – Podcast
Why is it that we make such a big deal about the need to understand your current time management skills here at 2Time Labs?
In this podcast with Val and Jayne from Save-Time.org we take an in-depth look at the our methods of diagnosing clients’ current skills – a critical shortcut in learning how to undertake an upgrade that’s efficient.
Don’t forget to sign up for regular updates to the podcast via iTunes.
New Thinking Around Time Demands
In a prior article on the topic of time demands I made a statement that is the cornerstone of my training: a time demand is an individual commitment to complete an action in the future.
I mentioned the fact that we create them in our minds, using a combination of imagination and volition. Until this event takes place, a time demand doesn’t exist – it hasn’t even been born.
What then of an unread email message that includes an important, and urgent time demand? According to the strict definition, it is not actually a time demand until it comes to our attention.
But does the email have some importance? Is it worth tracking? Is it worth separating from the other spam that’s in our Inbox, or lying on a gmail server in cyber-space?
After the fact, it’s clear that the email contains something that’s important before it’s read, so I’m coining a new definition: a “potential trigger.”
A “potential trigger” is a piece of information that may trigger the creation of a time demand once it’s read. As I mentioned in the article linked above, it may exist in the form of an email message, a tweet, a voicemail or even a letter in an envelope. Potential triggers are sent to us 24-7, and as working adults we have an agreement with our employers to take them seriously, collect them in some way and to examine them for time demands.
In other words, if a colleague sends you a potential trigger, you are obliged to process it in some way.
This isn’t rocket science by any means, but it appears to clear up some of the confusion in the way I use the term “time demands.”
Who is the main character, Bill, in my book?
I thought long and hard about the main character in my book especially after learning what writing a novel really and truly involved. Bill became a composite character that seemed to fit the role. So far, the feedback around him has been positive…
Click here to see the prior post in this series on YouTube, on why I decided to write a time management business fable or parable, rather than a regular “how-to” book.
Email’s Impact on Our Stress Levels
I found an interesting article that gives an early peek at the impact that email is having on our stress levels.
The article entitled Email raises stress levels gives an early peek at some intriguing research being conducted at Loughborough University by Professor Tom Jackson and his team. In a nutshell, it reveals that reading and sending email increases stress, and that it peaks at the times of day when people’s inboxes were the fullest.
Also, email “which arrived in response to completed work had a calming effect,” which appears to back up research conducted by Masicampo and Baumeister and M. Zeigarnik around the effect of completed or well-managed tasks.
I’m going to try to get a hold of the original research, just because it appears to be so promising. In particular, I suspect that email by itself has little effect, but the time demands that email triggers… well, that’s where it all starts.
Take a look at the article and stay tuned to this space for more insights if I am able to learn some more about these early findings.
Podcast – an Interview with Val and Jayne – Time Management Experts from Pink Shoe Power
In this interview with Val McDougall and Jayne Jennings of Save-Time.org and Pink Shoe Power, we explored the degree to which the work we do overlaps. We all strongly believe that one size doesn’t fit all and that we need to provide a way for learners to improve their skills, even as they find their own way.
[podcast]http://www.2time-sys.com/Storage%20Audio/Val%20and%20Jayne%20Podcast%2030_May_2013_18_02_06.mp3[/podcast]
You can also download the podcast from this link.
I hope you enjoy the broadcast, which lasts a little under an hour.
ASTD 2013 Revisited – Taking New Ideas Out into the World
In my prior post I mentioned the fact that recently spoke at the American Society of Training and Development’s International Conference and Exposition in Dallas. The topic of my speech, given to about 175 people, was “How to Stop Failing at Behavior Change Training.”
More importantly, I had an opportunity to bring a new idea developed here at 2Time Labs into the spotlight: when it comes to behavior change training such as time management, the traditional tendency is to try to give users long lists of new behaviors and simply give orders to get learners to follow them closely.
This approach may have worked in the past, but today it results in bored learners who quickly Google the behaviors being shared in the first hour, leaving by lunchtime once they have dug up all the contents of the list. They beat the trainer to the punch, in other words.
Instead, in the presentation, I advocated the approach we use here at 2Time Labs, which starts with the assumption that the learner is an adult who can effectively tackle the challenge of developing sophisticated skills. In other words, they can learn how to craft their own upgrade to their time management skills whenever they want.
The training we deliver in MyTimeDesign Plus (online) and NewHabits (ground) are based on this goal. Having it as a the primary outcome at all times has made all the difference, as you may imagine, as new eLearning technologies have come onstream, as well as better definitions of andragogy – adult learning.
You can pick up a summary of my presentation at the ASTD Conference here – How to Stop Failing at Behavior Change Training – The Case of Time Management.
Presenting New Training Ideas at the ASTD Annual Conference
Last week at the ASTD Conference I presented a number of ideas developed from the work we do here at 2Time Labs in time management. If you are a training administrator or corporate trainer, you may be interested checking out the ideas I shared on the topic of time management training and how to use what we have learned to develop and deliver better behavior change training.
Also, the additional resources I promised to share at the conference can be found here.
The Obstacles in My Book
In my book, I threw a number of obstacles in the way of the protagonist, Bill. They were all realistic, and reflect the work I have done with clients over the years.
Many contemporary problems are made worse by abuses of technology – as you’ll see from reading the book.
My prior post describes the character of Bill, the start of the “story.” His discoveries in time management are the main driver of the book – for more about him, click here for a Youtube video.