Your thinking and communications style significantly impacts on how you perceive events in life, your emotional and cognitive responses to those events and how you make decisions. And just as important is to understand that other people do NOT see things the way you do. Their style and background is different to you. That’s normal and that’s OK. Recognising this helps you to communicate more effectively and make better decisions, especially when they involve other people.
Remember how I said that time management is much more about decisions and choices than to-do lists and appointments. This is why understanding your style and other people’s styles makes a huge difference to your time management.
A simple example of two styles is a creative type person gets a sudden great idea and they want to tell everyone. So they run around to everyone in the office and tell them to go the meeting room for a meeting right now. The analyst type people now feel uncomfortable, annoyed and, after the meeting, will probably feel like it was a big waste of time.
As you were reading this you will have related more to one of the people than the other. This tells you about your style.Your style will influence what your time management system looks like. Your personalized system will need to help you to manage your time management weaknesses. But, just as important is that the system needs to be suited to your style so that it feels like it is part of you and is effective for you.
If you have done the Myer Briggs or DISC or other similar profiles you can use these to personalise your time management system. Get your profile and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Think about how these relate to time, life balance, accepting responsibility and letting go. Make recommendations for yourself about key factors to be included on your time management system.
Page 20The FULL Time Management from the Heart program has a Communication style questionnaire. Your communication style profile will help you Personalize your time management system. There are specific recommendations on what to focus on for each communication style. Do the Communication Styles Assessment.
What is your communication style?-- Triangle – Direct, confident, takes control, achieves goals, task orientated, fast paced, will do whatever it takes
-- squiggly line – Driven by emotion, creative, enthusiastic, loud, life of the party, spontaneous, loves attention, talkative
-- square – detailed, thorough, logical, like to be planned and prepared,
-- circle – wants to make people happy, people focused, builds
What are your time management strengths and weaknesses? Page 21 86 Nelson Rd Box Hill Vic 3129 03 9849 1723 fax 03 8640 0535