Monthly Archives: September 2018

On my last management blog, we discussed the importance of identifying our time bandits.  This is essential before we can do anything about them we must determine what they are; when we do this we must be honest. Remember, if we don’t do anything about them then nothing will change, they will continue to cause us issues and continue to be a time bandit. Therefore, we must do something about them.

One thing I always get delegates to do on our management courses is to write words down, identifying what the time bandit actually is and crucially what they are going to do about it.  We must write this down, it is an affirmation that we have identified that something needs correcting and how we intend on dealing with it.

Ok, let’s take a real example I had which is a time bandit on emails.  This was a big problem for me, I was constantly checking emails, and at one time, I was spending more time checking for emails than anything else, continually hitting the send/receive button or looking

What does the first twenty minutes look like for you at work, have you ever reflected on this?

I feel tired this morning sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee to wake me up, and we have all been there, it is Monday. The week has just started and is moving forward, every day for me has a different feeling. What makes my first few minutes tick, I ponder and decide to notice as I sit here after arriving first in the office.

What do I recognise and feel as I sit and what makes me start to energise? I begin to feel a rise in and being slightly energised by the radio in the corner of the room. I begin to type this blog thinking about the energy starting to rise in me, and I thought I would follow through and write what I am feeling.

Then a fellow office worker arrives, and a relationship starts, “morning”, “how are you?” “What did you do last night?”, General chit-chat. But I notice my energy levels rising slightly further.

I continue to chat, and we share a discussion on something we heard

Delivering Training is complex and is always full of challenges you may not necessarily be expecting.  This reminds me massively of my former RAF life where we had the reputation of being one of the very best Air Forces in the world, through sheer ability to “Adapt and Overcome” in the face of adversity.  On one of our recent PTT Train the Trainer courses in Leeds, our trainer Paul faced a few difficult challenges but came through them with “flying” colours (excuse the pun, but I couldn’t resist); so what skills does he, and the rest of the Target team, possess to do this so well?

Looking back, one of the other fundamentals we had in the RAF and a phrase that was more commonly used was “Flexibility is the key to Air Power” and I think it’s quite easy for us to adapt this to training; Let’s say that: “Flexibility is the key to a great training session.”  So, what are the key parts to that flexibility?  Here are my top tips:

Expect the unexpected – The mindset that everything will

To be effective at anything in life we have to be able to manage time.  If we don’t manage time then quickly our life can become confusing, and before we know it, we are not completing anything we want to do.  Our working day can then become chaos where we are struggling to keep our head above water as the river forever increasing tasks starts to take over.

A key aspect of being an effective manager is to manage our time.  The first thing we need to know is that we all have the same amount of time, every single one of us has the same amount of time, it’s what we choose to do in that time that is important.

In reality, we all contribute to our non-effectiveness with time management and in my experience having more tasks we can handle is quite rare.  Furthermore, our behaviours and actions contribute much more to our poor time management.  Before we can do anything about them one of the first things we have to do, is to identify what the actual issues are; in other words the elements

How often do you walk away from work, frustrated and disappointed the day has not gone as planned? Do you ever reflect on the day and ask yourself what has happened through the day? What was good and what would you like to be different, what would you change. I think it is deeper than that when you look at the day.

Sometimes in our lives, we have such expectations, what we expect out of the day. The problem is we create such self-imposed rules on ourselves and our workplaces that all we do is build our own disappointment.  Our expectations versus realism are sometimes streets apart. We as human beings tend to focus on our frustrations from the day which can create negativity. This then gives the domino effect so that when we go home that we feel we have had such a rubbish day, affects us mentally.

Ask yourself three questions, the first how would I like the day to run, regardless of your professions, what is a perfect day. Then follow this with what were the limitations of the day,

I was so sad to hear the news about Rachael Bland who died yesterday from Cancer aged 40.  Along with BBC colleagues, she compiled an audio blog, which was all about her journey dealing with Cancer.  Her approach was, to be honest, and talk about things and not to hide anything.  I first heard Rachael on BBC 5-Live talking about her condition, and I found myself becoming very emotional, particularly when she spoke about her young son.

What I admired about Rachel was that she used the news of her condition to start to live.  She used it as a vehicle to promote her role as a confident voice to individuals and families going through the same experience.  Her blog has helped and provided information to so many people; it wasn’t about self-promotion, it was about promoting issues and giving knowledge.

Many individuals exist, they go from day to day without an end goal or vision; without a reason to live. This is what happens to many of us of course, and it so easy to exist, we