@barrettg19
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Time Management Skills Training for Remote Workers and Freelancers
Time Management Training for Workplaces
Look, I've been banging on about this for the better part of two decades now and half the businesses I visit still have their people rushing about like crazy people. Just last month, I'm sitting in this gleaming office tower in Sydney's CBD watching a team leader frantically switch between fifteen open browser tabs while trying to explain why their quarterly targets are completely stuffed. Honestly.
This guy's got several mobiles buzzing, Teams messages going crazy, and he's genuinely amazed when I suggest maybe just maybe this approach isn't working. This is 2025, not 1995, yet we're still treating time management like it's some complicated dark art instead of basic workplace practice.
The thing that drives me mental. Every second Business owner I meet believes their people are "simply disorganised" or "lack the right approach." Total nonsense. Your team isn't broken your systems are. And more often than not, it's because you've never bothered teaching them how to actually organise their time well.
What This Chaos Actually Costs You
Picture this about Rebecca from this marketing agency in Brisbane. Brilliant woman, really gifted. Could make magic happen with clients and had more brilliant concepts than you could poke a stick at. But good grief, observing her work was like watching a car crash in real time.
Her morning began with her day checking emails for ages. Then she'd dive into this massive project brief, get part way in, remember she needed to call a client, get sidetracked by a Slack message, start working on a something else, notice she'd forgotten about a meeting, hurry to that, come back to her desk absolutely fried. Rinse and repeat for endlessly.
The real problem? This woman was doing twelve hour days and feeling like she was getting nowhere. Her anxiety were through the roof, her work standard was inconsistent, and she was seriously considering leaving the industry for something "simpler." Meanwhile, her coworker Mark was handling the same responsibilities in normal time and always seemed to have time for actual lunch.
What made Dave effective between these two? Dave knew something most people never figure out time isn't something that happens to you, it's something you manage. Straightforward idea when you put it that way, doesn't it?
The Truth About Effective Time Management
Before you roll your eyes and think I'm about to sell you another productivity app or some complex methodology, settle down. Real time management isn't about having the ideal software or organising your planner like a rainbow threw up on it.
Success comes down to three basic principles that most education totally overlook:
First up Attention isn't shared. Sure, I know that's poor English, but stay with me. At any given moment, you've got one main thing. Not five, not three, only one. The moment you start managing "multiple tasks," you've already fallen into the trap. I learnt this the hard way managing a business back in Adelaide during the resources surge. Thought I was being brilliant juggling multiple "urgent" projects at once. Nearly ran the Business entirely trying to be all things to all people.
Point two Disturbances aren't inevitable, they're a choice. This is where most local companies get it completely wrong. We've built this culture where being "accessible" and "quick" means jumping every time someone's device beeps. Listen, that's not effectiveness, that's automatic responses.
Had a client this legal practice on the Sunshine Coast where the partners were bragging that they responded to emails within thirty minutes. Proud! Meanwhile, their actual work were falling, legal tasks was taking much more time as it should, and their legal team looked like the walking dead. Once we implemented realistic expectations shock horror both output and client satisfaction improved.
Third Your energy isn't constant, so don't assume it is. This is my personal obsession, probably because I spent most of my earlier career trying to ignore energy dips with more caffeine. Plot twist: complete failure.
Some jobs need you alert and attentive. Others you can do when you're tired. Yet most people allocate work throughout their day like they're some sort of work android that operates at constant capacity. Absolutely mental.
What Works in the Real World
Now's when I'm going to irritate some people. Most time management education is total waste. There, I said it. It's either overly academic all frameworks and diagrams that look pretty on slides but fail in the field or it's too focused on software and programs that become just additional work to deal with.
What works is training that accepts people are messy, workplaces are chaotic, and perfect systems don't exist. The best program I've ever delivered was for a group of construction workers in Darwin. This crew didn't want to hear about the Eisenhower Matrix or David Allen's system.
They wanted practical strategies they could use on a job site where nothing goes to plan every few minutes.
So we focused on three simple concepts: cluster related activities, guard your best thinking time for critical tasks, and learn to decline requests confidently about it. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing complex. Within six months, their project completion rates were up a solid third, extra hours spending had plummeted, and workplace stress claims had nearly been eliminated.
Contrast this with this fancy consulting firm in Brisbane that spent serious money on elaborate efficiency platforms and detailed productivity methodologies. Eighteen months later, half the workforce still wasn't using the system properly, and the other half was spending more time managing their productivity tools than actually achieving results.
Where Australian Companies Stuff This Up
The problem isn't that business owners don't recognise the importance of time management. They generally do. The real issue is they treat it as a universal fix. Use the same approach for everyone, give them all the same tools, expect the same results.
Complete rubbish.
Let me tell you about this industrial operation in Newcastle that called me up because their team leaders couldn't meet deadlines. The MD was convinced it was an education problem get the team managers some efficiency education and the issues would resolve themselves.
Turns out the real problem was that management kept shifting focus unexpectedly, the workflow management tool was about as helpful as an ashtray on a motorbike, and the floor managers lost significant time in sessions that were better suited to with a five minute phone call.
No amount of efficiency education wasn't going to address fundamental issues. We ended up redesigning their entire communication process and establishing effective planning procedures before we even touched individual time management skills.
This is what really gets to me about so many Aussie organisations. They want to fix the symptoms without dealing with the fundamental problem. Your people can't handle their schedules efficiently if your business doesn't prioritise productivity as a finite asset.
The Brisbane Breakthrough
On the topic of business time awareness, let me tell you about this tech startup in Melbourne that totally shifted my thinking on what's possible. Small team, maybe twenty people, but they operated with a level of time consciousness that put major companies to shame.
Every meeting had a defined purpose and a strict ending point. People actually turned up prepared instead of treating discussions as thinking time. Communication wasn't managed like texting. And here's the kicker they had a organisation wide policy that unless it was absolutely essential, business messages ended at six.
Revolutionary? Hardly. But the results were remarkable. Staff efficiency was better than comparable organisations I'd worked with. Workforce stability was practically zero. And service quality metrics were exceptionally high because the work quality was consistently excellent.
The CEO's approach was straightforward: "We employ capable individuals and rely on them to handle their responsibilities. Our role is to build a workplace where that's actually possible."
Contrast that with this mining services Company in the Pilbara where leaders bragged about their overtime like symbols of commitment, discussions exceeded timeframes as a normal occurrence, and "critical" was the standard classification for everything. Despite having considerably larger budgets than the Melbourne startup, their individual output rates was roughly half the level.
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