Time management for financial planners and advisers can seem like a big challenge.
How often have you felt like you had way too much to do, too little time to do it, and you’ve stressed out as a result?
If you Google the subject of ‘time management’ you will find 12 billion results(!) and a ton of helpful tips, strategies, and ideas.
But if all this information is so helpful then why is time management such an issue for so many people?
It is because we tend to treat the symptoms and not the root cause. Very much like taking an antacid; it might provide you with some short-term relief but the underlying condition remains (and often worsens over time).
The fullest schedule I have ever seen
A practice owner I once worked with had got in touch for help with her ‘time management issue’ because she was totally overwhelmed.
As she described her situation to me I remember thinking that she had the fullest schedule I had ever seen!
For instance, she had 28 client meetings booked in for the week. The next 6 weeks (which was how long she booked ahead) looked very much the same.
The conventional approach to time management
For me, it would not have been useful to tackle her ‘time management issue’ directly.
Let me explain.
Conventional time management is about setting priorities, control, better processes, being organised, dealing with e-mail better, etc.
I am certainly not discounting the value of these things but are they what make people successful?
I recently read an article on time management that said, ‘The highest achievers manage their time exceptionally well.’
This is undoubtedly true. Yet do people such as Warren Buffet, James Dyson, or Arianna Huffington build successful businesses because they are better at time management than everyone else?
Or is there another, more invisible, factor involved?
Discovering the root cause
As with all my clients I was curious to understand why what she was doing made sense to her.
What began to emerge in our conversation was the amount of insecure thinking she had around money.
She felt she had to keep bringing in as much money as she could even though she was completely overwhelmed. She was afraid to change the system, such as doing less work for higher fees, because on one level what she was doing was working for her.
The fork in the time management road
Down one fork is to try and fix what you perceive as the problem by applying time management techniques or external fixes. This the antacid approach.
I spent years going down this road myself and because it did not help that much I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me. This was until I came across ‘The Three Principles‘ understanding.
Down the other fork is a philosophical, yet highly practical understanding of how your mind works.
It became clear to me that in a different state of mind a ‘problem’ will look completely different to us.
Most importantly, in a relaxed state of mind we all have unlimited capacity for new, creative thinking, and to live in calm, satisfying feelings.
Clarity of mind completely changes your approach to time management
So, instead of helpful tips I shared the Three Principles understanding with my client.
As soon as she saw how she was creating her reality she was amazed and thrilled at how quickly she stopped struggling. She intuitively knew what she needed to do. Apart from reducing her schedule and putting up her fees, over the next few months she re-engineered her business in many other beneficial ways too.
She also realised that simply re-arranging her schedule was not going to make much difference because that would be dealing with the symptom, not the cause.
How can this help you?
The main point is that the ultimate solution to time management issues begin with a better state of mind.
By all means use time management tools, but use them from clarity of mind, not from a feeling of overwhelm or pressure.
You have a built-in intelligence that will guide you through life. The more aligned you are with this intelligence the more you intuitively know how to prioritise your tasks, use your time wisely, and enjoy the experience.
P.S. Do you want to manage your time so you align with what you love to do? Drop me an email at john@clientcentredadvisers.com
