Great Time Management - Families

Family: The First Loser to Poor Time Management

Is poor time management disintegrating your family life? Both parents are working high demand jobs, the children are overwhelmed by pressures at school and life seems too complicated for the family to spend time together. No one has time to do face to face with each other so we rely on Facebook to stay in touch. We just can’t seem to find the time to do life with the ones that are most important to us. “What’s wrong with this picture?” we wonder.

You might ask how time management has anything to do with the quality of life your family experiences. The answer becomes clear when we realize that time is the most valuable asset we can contribute to our spouse and children. Most people would like to leave a legacy with no regrets but many are dissatisfied with what they are leaving behind.

In most family relationship as well as those outside the family, time is the currency that expresses value. Managing time effectively can be and is often related to two of our most important family relationships:

• Spouse/significant other – What type relationship do you currently have with your spouse or significant other? Would you classify it as a very connected relationship or a transactional one? In a transactional relationship you might feel like you using good time management techniques to cover all the important bases but you are limited as to how much freedom you have to explore options or move deeper into the relationship.

• For example, in a transactional relationship, if when you arrive home from work your spouse/significant other tells you that your child got into trouble at school that day and you only have time to talk about the results of the behavior but not the cause then you may be operating at a transactional level only. It is more like a business relationship rather than an intimate one.

• In a connected relationship, the proper use of time management will allow you and your significant other connect as you explore and delve deeper into the options you may have available to you. You have the time to investigate options at an intimate level not just the factual level.    

• Children – Do your time management methods include your children in a way that they recognize? In other words, do your children believe that you make special time allotments for them, their conversations and their activities? It takes time to build an intimate relationship with your child and bring them to a place where they feel free to allow you to enter their world. It helps if you can forge good open ended questions and take the time to listen to their answer.

Close families are built upon intimate relationships that are developed over time. One of the most important legacies a person could leave is to show his/her children how important time management is to the development of a close family.

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Article by John Golden