By Don Wetmore
Time Management
Don Wetmore
A personal crisis, for the most part, occurs when a deadline arrives behind you and robs you of your choices. And crisis management, for the most part, is simply poor time management.
Why? Because when you are under pressure, you are more likely to cut corners. Things slip through the cracks. Your stress level rises, and the quality of your performance may suffer.
I have been amazed over the years when college students handed in term papers and told me they didn’t have enough time to do a good job. My response was always, “When in the future will you find the time to do it over? Because if it’s as bad as you suggest, I’m going to give it back to you to redo.”
If you don’t have enough time to do it right the first time, where will the time come from to fix it?
If you find yourself in crisis management frequently, the problem may have less to do with the number of responsibilities you have and more to do with a lack of anticipation. Most of the situations that create a crisis are not truly surprising. They are events that could have been anticipated and prepared for.
There is an old saying: “A problem well defined is 95 percent solved.” If you have an accurate record of the crises that consume your time, you have already taken an important step toward preventing them in the future.
Here is a simple exercise that can help.
For the next two weeks, keep a crisis management log. Nothing fancy is required. Take a pad of paper – or use your phone or computer – and title it “Crisis Management Log.”
Whenever you encounter a crisis, record:
- The date and time.
- What happened.
- What caused the crisis.
- What you had to do to resolve it.
Include enough detail so that, two weeks later, you will remember the circumstances.
After two weeks, review every crisis you recorded and ask yourself one important question:
“Which of these could have been avoided?”
You may be surprised by what you discover.
In my experience, approximately 20 percent of the crises people encounter are genuinely unavoidable. Stuff happens. Unexpected problems, emergencies and circumstances beyond our control are part of life.
But the other 80 percent can often be reduced – or eliminated – through better anticipation and planning.
Once you identify the avoidable crises in your log, take corrective action. Start important projects earlier. Request information before you actually need it. Build time into your schedule for the unexpected. Follow up before a deadline becomes urgent rather than waiting until the last minute.
The goal isn’t to eliminate every crisis. That’s impossible.
The goal is to stop creating crises that better planning could have prevented.
When you anticipate what is coming, you give yourself something every effective time manager needs: choices.
Don Wetmore is a certified business coach and the author of “The Productivity Handbook” and “Organizing Your Life.” Contact him at 203-394-8216 or ctsem@msn.com.