Lesson No. 8 - Successful (or unsuccessful!) time management skills go hand-in-hand with abilities to plan and execute

I see this at work and in my private life.

Brokers working on proposals who utilize our "RFP Desk" may allocate the work into who-does-which-section (the first step to putting together a reinsurance proposal), but they do not allow for enough time for the rounds of review and execution that follow (that's when we pass the proposal back and forth). Nor do the brokers manage their team members' time adequately (or even seem to follow up with them to see if they're on schedule), so that no one meets deadlines. This "snowball" gets bigger and bigger. End result? I'm usually working until the wee hours of the night in order to keep them to their (revised) schedule.

In real life, I simply don't have enough hours in the day. We all know the solutions--multitask, delegate, and take less on, but it's not always easy. So I take the path of least resistance--not always executing the lesser important planned items and skipping on sleep.

I find myself suffering from killer headaches and swollen glands once in a while, as well as occasional bouts of incredible sleepiness when I'm driving. Probably connected to the way I handle obligations in life and sleep. Scary, unsafe, and not smart, I know...

So, on that note, let me get back to finishing up bill paying and newspaper reading. I'll skip coupon clipping this evening! :-)

Yes, I've got to better organize my time. Hmmmm, maybe I can do that next week!