Dealing with the time bandits
What do you do when someone encroaches on your time? You’ve planned out your day. You’ve popped into the coffee shop on one of your 15-minute breaks to avoid the hustle and bustle and traffic noise. And yet, whilst you enjoy that latte or your frothy cappuccino, your client phones or one of your family members' phones asking you where they’ve lost an item. They’ve phoned you because you know exactly where to find this. Don’t you find that your mobile phone tends to go crazy every time you step out to have a break?
How do you deal with time bandits? Time bandits are something or someone that consumes an excessive amount of time, especially without achieving anything productive. Well, you just switch off your phone for the 15 minutes or put it on silence, I hear you saying? Well, of course, I will respond to you. My next question to you is, have you subconsciously detached yourself from this minor disruption? We may switch off the phone or not answer the phone. We start feeling uneasy about the “what ifs”. What if it’s an emergency? What if the client’s phoning to close the deal? What if it’s important news? What if’s??
The key to protecting your time is to set boundaries. My coach calls this ‘tiger time’. Tiger time is about being ruthless about not allowing anyone or anything to disturb or disrupt your allocated personal time, which you have carved out for yourself for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes or one hour. By setting boundaries, you teach others to respect your time boundaries or your time.
The second tip to protecting your time is having self-awareness. Be aware of the inner guilt nudging you to cut short your lunch break or rush down your mug of coffee to complete a task just because somebody wants you to. Don’t be at the mercy of someone else’s time agenda. You owe yourself to take your well-deserved break in peace.
The world is not going to end if you don’t respond to a call during your break or you don’t phone them back during your moment of peace and quiet. Finally, sit back and enjoy your coffee, and don’t allow anything to come between it. The time bandits can wait!
