Being Careful as a Trainer

People who pick up a book or program in time management are often quick to claim it as their guiding light. They’ll tell you that “they are following the ACME System of Time Management by W.E. Coyote” with a sense of pride.

As a trainer, what you know is that they are actually fooling themselves.

Watch the video below to find out why they need to own their time management system, then come back to continue reading.

As a trainer, it’s tough to help them see the light, especially when they attribute superhuman tendencies to the author/creator of the approach they “use.”

But you should persevere, so that when the guru finally runs out of steam, they don’t simply go looking for a new one. Instead, they should return their attention to their current habits, practices and rituals and start their new journey of improvement with an new understanding of how they work.

Below the video on YouTube, I added the following description.

People get confused when they attempt to improve their time management skills. They pick up a book, or take a program that lays out a set of practices for them to follow, and then they tell others that they are “using that system.”They more often fail than not because of how difficult it is to adopt anyone else’s habit pattern. This is especially true for complex systems like the ones we use to manage our time, and not so true for simple ones like brushing our teeth each morning.

It’s a much better idea to tell the truth – you aren’t “using” someone else’ system, you are using your own. You may borrow ideas, concepts and teaching from someone else, but at the end of the day, and long after the book or program has lost its relevance, you’ll be using YOUR program.

You need to appreciate the fact discovered by recent research: we ALL have developed our own intricate time management systems by the time we reach our early twenties (if we are fully functioning adults.) When we don’t understand this, we ignore an important rule of andragogy (the science of adult learning): adults come to a learning opportunity with some skills already in place. They are not like kids, in other words, who come to school like blank slates.

Given that you have your own system when you pick up a book or program, you need to be careful – and change it slowly, or else you’ll have a very hard time trying to put in place some habits that someone else uses.

So – Is it my productivity system or theirs? It’s YOURS!