Time Management: Getting Your Day Back

Time Management: Giving Yourself the Day You Deserve

A workshop with David Smith, Leadership Coach, from 9am to 4:30pm

Overview

What if I told you the difference between feeling constantly overwhelmed, and being truly in control of your workday, is not about working harder, but about working with intention? Why, you might wonder, do some people seem to float through their days while right-thinking people like you feel like they’re drowning in a never-ending sea of emails, meetings and last-minute, high-priority demands?

After coaching thousands of busy professionals around Australia for the past fifteen years, I’ve learnt something fascinating: the people who have mastered their time aren’t superhuman. What they’ve figured out is the difference between activity and traction, between getting a lot done and getting the important stuff done. They've found the key to something most of us were never taught — how to get out AHEAD of time - rather than chase it.

This is not about adding to your plate or making you a productivity robot. It is about taking control of your day with practical, sustainable strategies that work for actual human beings with real responsibilities. We’ll address the time sucks that are sabotaging your productivity right under your nose and give you strategies for protecting your focus in a distraction-mad world.

Learning Outcomes

At the conclusion of this workshop, learners will be able to:

Learn proven frameworks to help you identify and prioritise high-impact tasks to address the roar of competing demands

Set up email and task management systems that will keep you from feeling overwhelmed and keep your mind clear

Approach:Group related activities together Use batching to minimize mental switching costs Increase productivity

Confidence in navigating workplace dynamics (including setting boundaries and managing unreasonable expectations)

Put the brakes on procrastination, and create specialised plans to combat avoidance tendencies.

Our stable social daily structure, which doesn’t belong to us, let’s play make believe that we are bohemians, entrepreneurs or psychic hand readers.

Beez @ Especially Education Practical Tips To manage your workload and priorities, and not show that you're drowning in paperwork and to-do lists if you've already made the decision to stay for the year: 25.

What You Will Learn

Session 1: The Basis - How to Understand Your Reality.

What’s truly happening when you feel like time is ruling you rather than the reverse? So we will begin by looking at the “reactive” patterns that prevent the majority of professionals from ever breaking “the cycle of endless catch-up.” Through exercises, you’ll map how you’re actually spending your time and discover where your hours actually go, versus where you think they go.

Session 2: Architecture Top Priority - Constructing Your Decision Framework

What always strikes me is how everything feels pressing until you take a step back and look at them again. We'll build a personal machine to help you separate truly important work from mere urgent-but-trivial tasks disguised as priorities. You’ll learn the art of strategic “no”-saying as well as having difficult conversations about realistic workload expectations.

Session 3: What Works That Lasts - Email, Tasks, Information flow

Why do systems in some systems they work well for six months and then completely break down? We’ll create actual systems for taming your inbox, processing information, tracking actions—systems that are workable and adaptable as your responsibilities expand instead of something that turns into just another thing to manage.

Session 4: The Doodle Cycle - Unlocking the Power of Your Mind's Natural Rhythms of Work and Play!

What if your “time management problem” has nothing to do with time? We’ll delve into the emotional and psychological aspects that underlie procrastination, perfectionism and avoidance. You’ll find your own rhythm of productivity and you’ll learn to work with your natural energy cycles rather than against them.

Session 5: Securing Your Focus – Boundaries and Buffer Zones

How do you do deep work in a place that's meant to distract you? We’ll work on how to preserve your focus, how to handle colleagues’ expectations and how to enable a realistic amount of buffer time in your schedule when some urgent but really needs yearly work request lands in your lap.

Session 6: Integration and Maintenance – Making It Stick

The world’s best system is worthless if you quit it after two weeks. We will be working on making those changes sustainable by developing action plans tailored to your work environment, team dynamics, and personal preferences. You'll walk away with a crystal clear plan for the first 30 days and months to come.

Summary

This is a workshop that understands that you don't have to be perfect to be effective with your time: it's about intention. Instead of struggling to manage every minute, you’ll practice making strategic decisions about where to direct your attention and how to spend your energy.

Drawing on tried and tested structures, practical exercises, and candid insight into real-life issues at work, Without the Burden of Time helps you build a tailor made system that actually works for you. The goal is not to turn you into a productivity machine, but to help make you feel like you are genuinely in control of your workday. So that you can do your best work and hold onto your sanity.

What you will learn is that the people who appear to have everything under control aren’t managing more time — they’re managing their time better. At the close of our day together, you will have the tools and confidence to count yourself among their number.

Location: Brisbane

Duration: Full day workshop

Group Size: Max 12 for personal attention and hands-on practice