Your time is a precious commodity. It is one thing to try to manage your time, but if you are powerless in protecting it from people who would use it without any boundaries, your efforts can be useless. This brings me to why I decided to write this post.
Sometimes in the workplace, people sometimes feel that way, too.
One way that people tend to feel particularly disrespected is with their time. You’ve undoubtedly heard the words to the effect of “On time is too late.” But the person on the receiving end of that disrespect is at a quandary. After all, most people make a living exchanging their time for money.
Controlling Your TIme
A Blast from the Past
One lady who came up to speak with me after a workshop I gave faced just such a problem. She was well-credentialed, accomplished, and a star at her job. What did that get her? She came in earlier than others, and stayed later. All the while, her boss is praising her and patting her on the back, while reinforcing the bad behavior of other people dumping their work on her.
She had effectively become trapped by her efficiency and willingness to “help” others out. She wanted more control of her time, and did not know how to go about reclaiming it.
Make Time for Lunch
After the lady paused to breathe, I asked her if she worked through lunch. Predictably, she said yes. She objected that she couldn’t, when I told her she must start. She said it’s so bad now that it’s expected of her, and she couldn’t just leave. I advised that she didn’t have to go out to lunch every day. One week she could go out on a Tuesday, another week on a Friday.
Don’t Justify Yourself
In addition, I told her how to avoid having to justify spending the time that already belongs to her. If people asked her where she was going, or where she had been, her answer was to be the same: “I’m going out to lunch,” or “I went to lunch.” No matter how often people asked, she was not to deviate from that answer. This was to signal to people that she did not owe them an explanation. Then gradually, she could build her courage to start going to lunch on a more regular basis.
Create a “Hard Stop”
I gave her a third tip to protect her time. Whether or not she had something to do after work, I challenged her to pick one day during the week to leave on time. At the beginning of the day, she was to announce to the repeat offenders that she’s leaving at a particular time. She was to further give them a deadline by which to pass along any work to her, so that should could get it completed. Anything that arrived after that time would have to wait until the following day.
Why this Gradual Approach?
When people feel empowered, there’s rarely a need for almost sneaky tactics like this. However, for many people who have lived in an “Office Space” type of environment for a long time, they truly can’t imagine how they can emerge from that frustration. Some work environments are toxic, filled with saboteurs armed with landmines. Therefore it will take some patience to reset the boundaries to where they should be. If your situation has not devolved to this level, make sure you regularly take the steps to keep it that way.