The Watering Can Principle: Doomed to Fail in Time Management!

We’ve pondered what truly distinguishes effective and sustainable time management training from less relevant and hardly fruitful ones. The result is as simple as it is surprising.

An Overview of the Time Management Training Landscape

Since productivity experts like Stephen Covey, Peter Drucker, and Alan Lakein emphasized that time management helps us become more effective and efficient, the market for time management training has boomed. Typically, these trainings all look similar: participants are bombarded with a variety of time management methods. After a brief introduction, goal setting is tackled.

For setting concrete and realistic goals, participants are urged to understand SMART, MMM, or the Goals Stairs. The ABC method, Eisenhower Matrix, or the $25,000 method are explained for setting adequate priorities – sometimes all in one go. For planning, trainers often rely on the ALPEN method. Of course, the performance curve, disturbance time curve, and concentration curve should not be missing. But beware: First things first! Then follow the Time Balance Model, Pareto Principle, and many more.

The question one can only ask is: If one method follows another, how can participants still be receptive to the tenth one – let alone figure out how to apply them? Because a training doesn’t offer them that much time.

Why are there so many methods and principles anyway?

In total, there are well over 50 time management methods. A great repertoire passed down and expanded from trainer to trainer. But why aren’t a few methods enough? Ask trainers about the best method, and you’ll hear different answers. Why are there so many alternatives? Perhaps because there are so many topics that all need to be covered? Hardly. With ALPEN, we could already cover a large part. Then, because experts want to be recognized as elite with their new method? Quite possible! However, it’s much more likely that the inventors of new methods couldn’t cover their individual values ​​in a good time management with the existing repertoire. In other words: There are so many methods because time management is so individual, and different methods express this individuality. Some trainers focus more on planning and therefore prefer the Eisenhower Method for setting priorities, while others focus on implementation (i.e., effective and efficient work itself) and thus prefer the $25,000 method.

Everyone is helped by the same tips – or maybe not?

Just as trainers have their individual preferences, participants also bring their individuality into the training. One way to address this is to consider the participants’ personality. The persolog® Model Czynnika Osobowości examines people’s superficial personality traits, i.e., their behavior. Time management is a behavior. Therefore, personality also influences time management. How exactly does it look? Let’s check it out:

Dominant:

Some people strive for success. These people potentially plan less in writing, not even their priorities. Rather, prioritization occurs intuitively and in the mind. They have their goals clearly in mind. Therefore, they focus on tasks that bring them closer to their goals quickly. They usually just leave trivial matters because they bring little. They are attracted to the important and urgent things. A tip for Dominant Behavioral Style: Keep an eye on less urgent tasks too, so as not to burn out in the long run. This also includes active relaxation and time to relax!

Influencing:

Other people are driven by the desire for recognition. They love life and work when they can move things forward with others. They are absorbed by new, varied, and colorful tasks. This also has an influence on completing tasks. Depending on their motivation, they also spontaneously change their priorities. According to the motto “What matters is what’s fun,” any planning becomes a challenge. A tip for Influencing Behavioral Style: Prioritize more according to the criterion of importance, less according to the fun factor. Increase your motivation for unpleasant tasks by involving others.

Steady:

Still, other people strive for cohesion and cooperation. They see it as their task to support others and to advance the team’s tasks collectively. Since they rarely pursue their own goals, prioritizing is particularly difficult for them. Instead of emphasizing importance (=goal), they focus on the loud, urgent tasks. Therefore, the so-called C-tasks receive far too much attention. A tip for Steady Behavioral Style: Seek exchange with colleagues to find out deadlines and assess importance. This helps to determine the order of task processing.

Cautious:

The fourth group of people focuses on perfection. It is important to them to put the cherry on top of the work result. They are relatively good at prioritizing tasks. Here, it is less the structured planning that gets in the way, but rather the implementation of the planning. Because even if the benefit of a task is less apparent, it is completed 100% to meet the quality expectations. A tip for Cautious Behavioral Style: Don’t plan every detail. Limit your perfectionism to the important tasks. Then increase your speed with the less important tasks.

More important than methods: Personality!

So, most time management trainings apply the watering can principle: With a lot of enthusiasm, all time management methods, tips, and tricks are poured equally onto the already overloaded participants in a 1- or 2-day training. How is a seedling supposed to unfold its roots and grow in such an environment? Some plants need more sunlight, others more shade. Some plants need more fertilizer, water, and loving words than others. Likewise, different personalities also need different methods and tips in time management.

Of course, time management methods like SMART and Co. should be part of time management training. However, much more essential than the methods themselves is to initiate and co-create a thought process in the participants. Trainers who manage to convey to their participants their own individuality in time management and to provide methods and tips that really help the individual move boundaries.

Instead of focusing on quantity, it should be about quality. Instead of presenting all methods, the right methods should be taught and rethought for each individual. It’s about learning to appreciate differences and starting where it really touches the individual. Only then can the transfer to practice succeed. Only then can time management trainings really be sustainable.