For the purposes of this blog, I’m going to be using some terms that I need to define.
Time Clutter, for all intents and purposes, is the outcome of low Time Management skills, which is further defined as a mismatch between one’s skills and one’s volume of demands.
For example, a Yellow Belt professional who has a life that requires Green Belt skills will experience the same symptoms as anyone else who has a mismatch, such as an overloaded Inbox and commitments that fall through the cracks. In other words, they’ll experience time clutter: an inability to manage all their time demands.
It’s quite different from physical clutter, which accumulates in physical space, as the point of accumulation takes place primarily in the mind. Time clutter comes with some costs to peace of mind, reputation and other awful symptoms.
Only an upgrade to one’s time management system will reduce time clutter if the number of time demands remains the same. An iPad won’t work, and neither will the latest Intel chip, sleeping more hours each night, changing one’s diet, boosting one’s energy or anything that we think should take the place of time management. The challenge, of course, is that this upgrade must take place in the middle of one’s life; this makes it extremely challenge as no timeouts are permitted!
Coaching vs. Consulting
To simplify things a bit on this blog, I’m using the terms coaching and consulting interchangeably.