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Time Management Skills Training for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners
Techniques for Time Management
Look, I've been going on about this for the better part of two decades now and the majority of organisations I walk into still have their people running around like headless chooks. Not long ago, I'm sitting in this shiny office tower in Brisbane's city centre watching a team leader frantically jump between seventeen different browser tabs while trying to explain why their project deadlines are shot to pieces. Honestly.
This employee has got multiple devices going off, Slack notifications going nuts, and he's genuinely shocked when I suggest maybe just maybe this way isn't working. This is 2025, not 1995, yet we're still treating time management like it's some mysterious dark art instead of basic workplace skill.
What really winds me up. Half the Business owner I meet believes their people are "simply chaotic" or "lack the right attitude." Absolute codswallop. Your team isn't broken your systems are. And in most cases, it's because you've never tried teaching them how to actually organise their time effectively.
The Hidden Price of Poor Time Management
Here's a story about Sarah from this marketing agency in Brisbane. Sharp as a tack, absolutely brilliant. Could sell ice to Eskimos and had more creative ideas than you could poke a stick at. But good grief, observing her work was like witnessing a car crash in progress.
She'd start her day checking emails for an hour. Then she'd dive into this complex project outline, get partially done, remember she must contact a client, get interrupted by someone dropping by, start tackling a different campaign, realise she'd forgotten about a meeting, hurry to that, come back to her desk absolutely fried. This pattern for endlessly.
The worst bit? She was pulling twelve hour days and feeling like she was spinning her wheels. Her anxiety were through the roof, her work quality was unpredictable, and she was seriously considering finding another job for something "easier." In contrast, her teammate Dave was managing identical projects in normal time and always seemed to have time for casual chat.
What made Dave effective between these two? Dave knew something most people never figure out time isn't something that controls your day, it's something you take charge of. Straightforward idea when you put it that way, right?
What Succeeds vs What's Total Nonsense
Before you switch off and think I'm about to sell you another digital solution or some elaborate framework, hold on. Real time management isn't about having the perfect digital setup or creating your planner like a rainbow exploded.
Success comes down to three fundamental things that most education totally overlook:
Number one Focus isn't shared. Yeah, I know that's poor English, but stay with me. At any given moment, you've got one main thing. Not multiple, not three, just one. The second you start handling "multiple tasks," you've already fallen into the trap. Discovered this the tough way operating a consultancy back in Adelaide during the resources surge. Thought I was being brilliant juggling fifteen "important" clients together. Nearly ran the Business completely trying to be universally helpful.
Rule number two Distractions aren't unavoidable, they're a choice. This is where most Australian businesses get it completely wrong. We've built this environment where being "responsive" and "immediate" means responding every time someone's notification sounds. Listen, that's not effectiveness, that's Pavlovian conditioning.
I worked with this law firm on the Sunshine Coast where the owners were boasting that they answered emails within quick time. Proud! Meanwhile, their actual work were dropping, case preparation was taking much more time as it should, and their solicitors looked like the walking dead. Once we implemented realistic expectations shock horror both output and Customer happiness increased.
The final point Your stamina isn't constant, so stop pretending it is. This is my favourite topic, probably because I spent most of my younger years trying to fight energy dips with more caffeine. Plot twist: doesn't work.
Some jobs need you alert and focused. Different work you can do when you're tired. Yet most people randomly assign work throughout their day like they're some sort of efficiency machine that runs at full power. Mental.
Programs That Deliver Results
Now's when I'm going to annoy some people. Most time management training is absolute garbage. Had to be, I said it. It's either excessively complex all frameworks and diagrams that look pretty on presentations but fail in the field or it's fixated on apps and apps that become just another thing to handle.
What works is programs that accepts people are messy, workplaces are constantly changing, and ideal solutions don't exist. The best program I've ever conducted was for a team of tradies in Townsville. These guys didn't want to know about the Priority Grid or David Allen's system.
They wanted practical strategies they could use on a worksite where things change every five minutes.
So we zeroed in on three straightforward principles: cluster related activities, protect your peak energy hours for meaningful projects, and learn to refuse commitments without shame about it. Nothing revolutionary, nothing complicated. Half a year down the track, their project completion rates were up thirty percent, extra hours spending had plummeted, and worker wellbeing issues had almost completely vanished.
Contrast this with this premium consultancy business in Adelaide that spent massive amounts on comprehensive time management software and intricate performance frameworks. A year and a half down the line, half their team still wasn't using the system properly, and the other half was spending more time managing their productivity tools than actually getting work done.
The Common Mistakes Everyone Makes
The problem isn't that business owners don't recognise the need for better organisation. Most do. The problem is they approach it like a one size fits all solution. Send everyone to the same training course, give them all the same tools, hope for uniform improvements.
Absolute nonsense.
Here's the story of this manufacturing Company in Newcastle that called me up because their team leaders couldn't meet deadlines. The MD was convinced it was a skills gap get the section leaders some efficiency education and all problems would disappear.
Turns out the real problem was that the executive team kept altering directions suddenly, the production planning system was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, and the supervisors spent half their day in sessions that were better suited to with a quick conversation.
Even the best organisational courses wasn't going to address fundamental issues. We ended up redesigning their entire communication process and establishing effective planning procedures before we even touched individual time management skills.
This is what drives me mental about so many Australian businesses. They want to treat the effects without dealing with the fundamental problem. Your people can't organise their work properly if your Company doesn't value efficiency as a valuable resource.
The Melbourne Revelation
On the topic of business time awareness, let me tell you about this software Company in Melbourne that fundamentally altered my understanding on what's possible. Small team, maybe twenty people, but they operated with a level of scheduling awareness that put most corporations to shame.
Every meeting had a clear agenda and a firm conclusion deadline. People actually arrived ready instead of treating discussions as thinking time. Communication wasn't managed like texting. And here's the kicker they had a Company wide agreement that unless it was genuinely urgent, business messages ended at six.
Earth shattering? Hardly. But the results were extraordinary. Team productivity was superior to equivalent businesses I'd worked with. Workforce stability was almost perfect. And Customer happiness ratings were through the roof because the work quality was consistently excellent.
The founder's philosophy was simple: "We recruit talented professionals and rely on them to handle their responsibilities. Our responsibility is to establish conditions where that's actually possible."
Consider the difference from this resource sector business in Perth where managers wore their 80 hour weeks like symbols of commitment, meetings ran over schedule as a standard practice, and "urgent" was the normal designation for everything. Despite having substantially greater funding than the Melbourne startup, their individual output rates was roughly half the level.
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