How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Página 341

“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey called it
“sharpening the saw” and made it one of the keystones of
personal effectiveness.
E/ Time and Others
Time Stealers are people who, without anything to do with their
own time, steal yours from you as well. They fill up their hours
by wasting yours. Often these are close colleagues, customers,
even your own boss, so it can be difficult to know how to deal
with them. But, unless you want to join this gang of thieves, you
must learn to say No to Time Stealers.
1. Manage Your Interruptions
One of the reasons why we allow others to take over our time at
work is our need to know what is going on. Henry Mintzberg,
professor of management at McGill University in Montreal,
discovered that the majority of a manager’s time is spent
receiving and responding to hearsay, rumour, and news.
Managers feel a great need to know what’s going on and they do
this by letting themselves be interrupted by others. If this is you,
you need to be aware of how much of your time is usefully spent
in this way, and how much is wasted. In short, you need to know
how to manage your interruptions.
2. Avoid These Time Wasters
One of the keys to managing your interruptions is to distinguish
between people who bring you useful information and those
who don’t. This latter group comprises 3 types in particular that
you should avoid like the plague:
• moaners, whingers and complainers
• the coffee-set who congregate during work
• the watering-hole set who congregate after work.
Socialising with your team is fine if you can control it. Excessive
socializing is like begin sucked into a time-consuming swamp.
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