All the Time in the World...

How to Manage Time and People

by Julie-Ann Amos

Julie-Ann Amos is a freelance consultant within business, management and human resources. She has worked in the RAF, the public sector, retail, recruitment and banking – in as far locations as New York, Hong Kong, Scotland, and the Falkland Islands. Currently, she works part-time, consulting with a banking institution in the City of London, and freelances during the rest of her time. She is the author of a number of books published by How To Books on management topics. She lives in London with her husband, a wonderful garden and a small menagerie, including a Siberian Husky, and a very helpful cat who likes to type and play computer games!

Read our interview with Julie-Ann Amos

You can’t manage time. What you can do is manage other people. Which is good, because one of the main barriers to time management is other people. Other people cause interruptions, make demands, slow you down, don’t deliver on time, don’t give clear instructions and deadlines – you name it.

Here are 5 “people types” which impact time management.

Controllers…
have an overdose of megalomania. They want control, and will go to surprising lengths to achieve it. Direct control attempts might include accessing your diary, refusing to hear “no” or “I can’t” or pushing you into meetings and appointments. And if they can’t control your time directly, they may do it indirectly, consciously or subconsciously, by manipulation.

Signs of a devious controller at work include last-minute rescheduling, constant interruptions, people being late, being unexpectedly early, sudden changes in goalposts and deadlines, running over time limits and lots of “emergencies” and panics.

Procrastinators…
like to take their time. They believe in thinking things through, preparing, researching, scheduling – anything rather than accept they are putting things off.

Signs of procrastination are discussion groups, meetings to talk things through, excessive information collecting, etc. Plus a whole range of excuses such as needing to wait until they can give it their full attention, needing feedback first, waiting to see how other things turn out, taking it home for the weekend to look at in peace, etc…

Optimists…
are nice people. They just take on far too much. They agree to things they can’t possibly deliver, and always think they can get more done than Superman on a good day! They end up over-committed and unable to deliver, which lets others down. Often someone else has to pick up the pieces for them at the last minute, and this will disrupt their time although often people don’t mind because the optimists are so nice - always willing, always available. Too willing, too available. Signs of the optimist phrases such as “I’ll manage”, “Don’t worry”, “I’ll sort something out”, “Leave it with me”, “I just need to juggle things a bit”. They don’t like saying “no” because they don’t want to let people down. But sooner or later they can’t deliver and end up doing just that anyway.

Racehorses…
are very stressful to be around. They race about at top speed, whirling in and out, always busy, always on the go. Being busy makes them important, it makes them look good – or so they think. But are they busy doing the right things? Where are they when someone needs them? Probably rushing around again. Catching hold of them long enough to explain something properly is hard, so the quality of what they do is sometimes not ideal.

Racehorses run on urgency. They like to impress by being quick, associating it with efficiency, but often leaving others (who need them and their time) trailing behind in their wake.

Perfectionists…
have focussed on the word important. They like everything to be done as well as possible, taking the necessary time, they need to get everything done well. They get uneasy when asked to do a “rush job”, or to give rough figures, estimates etc. Their catchphrase is “if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well”.

They can be infuriating if their standards of accuracy, thoroughness and detail just aren’t necessary. But if these standards are important, perfectionists can be a huge asset. The danger is that when they impose their standards on others unnecessarily, it leaves others frustrated by their apparent lack of urgency and failure to deliver on time.

Conclusion
We can all identify people we know in these 5 categories. But don’t forget to take the time to have a quick glance in the mirror! Are you one of these? If so, you could be finding managing your time difficult – or easy if you’re a racehorse or controller. Either way, you’re not helping others to manage their time.

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