The best way to learn to manage your time is to practice

“Time management helps an individual to be more organised and more productive”, Shlomo Lempert explains. “To learn, experience and practice different methods and tools that will help prioritise, plan, execute, measure and follow-up on how you are using your time in the most effective and efficient way possible.” This also has a positive effect on your work-life balance and prevents burnout.

Mr. Shlomo Lempert is a Senior Business and Management Consultant; he graduated from Harvard Business School; INSEAD-France and the Business School at Tel Aviv University. With over 25 years' experience specialising in different management areas including time management practice, Mr. Lempert helps organisations, teams and individuals to improve their performance and effectiveness via training, workshops and 1 on 1 coaching. He is also the Academic Director of the Human Resources Management programme at Galilee Institute, where he lectures on time management, or as he puts it ”Self productivity, efficiency and effectiveness”.

He further stresses the following four dimensions of time management:

1) When looking at time management on the individual level, the main questions usually are: What can I do for myself as an employee, manager or independent worker? How are we managing ourselves in time, how do we set our priorities, our efforts vs impact? How can I make the best use of my time and have a better work and life?

2) When working as a group or in a team, the questions on how can we manage a project and work on things that also depend on others arise. How can we make the best use of the time of all our members?

3) On an organisational level we need to ask, what can the organisation do to improve the productivity of its employees and at the same time prevent burnout finding the delicate balance between organizational and individual needs? This can be achieved through various methods, depending on the organisation’s culture.

4) Mr. Lempert highlights the importance of coaching: How to teach (time management) skills to others and make a substantial impact on their work and lives. What you have learned you can bestow upon your colleagues.

Whether you are a professional in Human Resource Management or Project Management, you not only need these tools and skills for yourself, but it is your responsibility to ensure that your team and your employees are similarly enabled. This adds additional value to both your team and organisation. It also helps you and your employees to have a better work life-balance, meaning they are happier and healthier and as research shows, more productive at work. These tools can also be used anywhere beyond work in our lives.

When teaching about time management, Mr. Lempert prefers a proactive approach, which engages all participants in practical group exercises. As stated at the beginning, he believes that no matter how much you read about the subject, the best way to learn is to practice.

The subject of time management is among many others, covered in our programmes on Human Resource Management and Project Management at Galilee International Management Institute in Israel.