Part 2 — Why the Best Indicators of Improvement Aren’t Necessarily Positive

Accept and Embrace Miscues and You’ll Discover the Best Place to Start

The Problem

Time demands, like all tasks, begin their lives as psychological objects. As such, they are difficult to measure…unlike their physical and digital counterparts.

Consequently, there are no clear signs about where task management improvement should start. For many people, it’s a haphazard process based on whatever new behavior or app they heard about most recently.

However, there is an unconscious pattern most eventually use. It’s tied in with failure — the aspects of their task management which aren’t working. Although they aren’t able to trace most specific issues back to their original sources, they do know a problem when they see it. Here’s a partial list of “unwanted symptoms” which are the first issues or problems to show up in people’s lives.

• inbox overflow
• overwhelm
• lost commitments
• mid-sleep, panicky wake-ups
• stressed relationships
• unbalanced health/burnout
• distractions
• multi-tasking
• indecision
• clutter (digital, physical)
• missed deadlines

These symptoms may have other causes, but it’s a good practice to examine the appearance of the above symptoms for evidence of problems in your task management.

At the same time, I have met people who have multiple symptoms but don’t believe they have an issue with their task or time management. With such weak diagnostic skill, they don’t know where to begin to make improvements.

Why is This Important?

Most functioning human beings manifest one or more these symptoms at different points in their careers. However, the most effective professionals treat these as early warning signs that their task management system needs to be diagnosed. This kicks off a fresh improvement cycle.

What’s the Link to the Rapid Assessment Program (RAP)?

Most people don’t pay attention to these defects and/or fail to link them back to their task management. In RAP, they become hyper-aware and, after a while, learn to act quickly. It’s part and parcel of making “The Switch”.

The defects listed above indicate the urgency of changes to be made. For example, when they are completely absent, it may be fine to keep things the same. There’s no need to make “The Switch”.

Unfortunately, they are in the minority. Most of us need to use these unwanted symptoms as triggers to undertake a skillful assessment.

Find out more about the MyTimeDesign Rapid Assessment Program in this webinar.