The art of managin our time.

By José Alberto Gaytán García*

Dear friends, the article that I’m going to comment on, is of interest to those people (like me) that have problems organizing our time, who are in this situation, almost always, arrive late or “borderline” to work meetings, family commitments and other personal activities. -People that are in this difficult situation, almost never have enough time to meet the commitments of a normal working day, which is why, we always leave things pending for “tomorrow”, this, as I pointed out, includes personal and family matters.

In most cases, the reason of this stressful situation, which undoubtedly affects our health, is due to a justified excess of work, but is also due to the lack of a culture of discipline and organization of our work and personal activities.

The proper administration of our time is worth millions of dollars or pesos, depending on which country we are talking about, so it would not be unreasonable for Mexico to approve a mandatory subject at all educational levels that is called for example, “Managing our Time”. Thus, from an early age, we train future generations of Mexican professional, under rules of order and discipline in the administration of their time that will mean a remarkable savings of millions of pesos and of course, make our youth safer, healthier and more successful.

In the executive world, this issue is of vital importance, since the presidents of large global organizations must be calm and have sufficient time to handle hundreds of issues and above all, they must be calm to make decisions on behalf of corporate interests that they represent because if they fail, they are dismissed without any consideration, so cold and ruthless is the corporate world.

This is the subject of the article “The Magic of 30-Minute Meetings” of Peter Bregman, an expert in executive leadership who recommends this article as an excellent strategy for job success. Peter Bregman points out that in recent years, he was frustrated by his strenuous and heavy executive work, that he didn’t have enough time to meet any personal or family commitments. The author of the article explains that he had a bad habit of addressing various work problems simultaneously; that was when he made the decision to apply a new strategy to his heavy workload. For a week he focused on resolving one issue or problem at a time, that is without adding other problems, in addition, he reduced the time in half that it usually took him to take care of dozens of calls and above all he adjusted his exhausting work meetings to 30 minutes long.

According to Peter Bregman, the strategy of adjusting time to phone calls and business meetings in and out of his office is effective and powerful. The author of the article indicates that in his case, the adjustment of these activities achieved extraordinary results. The experiment worked to the degree that he improved his health, overcame stress, managed to better organize his time, his agenda allowed him to attend family meals, visit friends, write, sleep more and more importantly, the relationship with his family improved and his work productivity increased significantly.

The success of this measure, according to Bregman, is that when we know that we have half the time to address specific issues, we become more aware of how to take advantage of the time; that in this way every minute counts, we listen better, we are attentive to the issues raised, including, better prepared for meetings, arrive on time, even long before the meeting starts, there are no delays or talks beyond the focus of the meeting, that is, no political gossip of “the gasolinazo”, Donald Trump or issues that have nothing to do with the meeting; in this type of 30 minute meetings, everyone is happy because participants know that they save time and money.

So dear friends, it is not a bad idea to include in the list of purposes for 2017, the strategy of reducing the time of phone calls and to hold 30 minute work meetings because now we know that managing our time better, is a pure gold strategy.

jalbertogaytangarcia@gmail.com
A119R6/17

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José Alberto Gaytan

José Alberto Gaytán García ha escrito artículos y ensayos de corte académico en diarios y revistas de México y de los Estados Unidos; ha participado en importantes proyectos académicos e impartido conferencias sobre temas de historia, tecnología y educación en el marco de las relaciones entre México y los Estados Unidos, tema en el cual realizó sus estudios de doctorado en The Graduate School of Internacional Studies de la Universidad de Miami.