Women are losing their time to unexpected things in and out of the workplace and they need to find themselves again in all the chaos, a speaker recently said on the Texas A&M University-San Antonio campus.
Sharon Swisher, Exceptional Family Member program manager for the Department of the Army, spoke Oct. 17 at a luncheon in the Ceremony Room of Patriots’ Casa. Approximately 40 people attended.
The former Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sister used jokes and prizes to get the audience involved. She also used games and questions to keep them on their toes.
“So if we look at $86,400, that really equates to the number of seconds in one day,” Swisher said. “And so if you value your money as much as you value your time, then what does that say? We don’t put the same value on time as money.”
People always say they wished they had more time. Swisher spoke about time management and using one’s time more efficiently. Doing so requires organizing and planning how people are going to divide up daily tasks. Swisher said it’s working smarter and not harder.
“I don’t believe that any of us get up every morning and think, ‘Wow, how can I make it harder on myself today? How can I raise my stress and anxiety level? How can I complicate my workload?’” Swisher said.
Swisher says people want to lessen the workload so they can enjoy the things they like to do.
“So we all have an equal amount of time every day. You have 1,440 minutes in a day. Have you ever thought about how you can maximize that? Because standing for one minute or having your eyes closed for one minute, it’s hard to gauge time. We are so dependent on a watch or a clock to be able to tell us when to move forward, when to start, when to stop. It’s hard to self regulate time. It doesn’t come naturally,” Swisher said.
Swisher said being effective makes a difference, because everyone is reaching a common goal. Being busy isn’t the same as being effective. People need to decide when they can do something and when they can’t. Expectations are high because people set them high.
“So, I often consult with Siri,and Siri said busy is having a great deal to do. Effective is successful in producing an intended result,” Swisher said.
Swisher said people want to work with others who have good time management. Once you lose credibility, it’s hard to come back.
She said physical and mental health play a big factor in time management. If you’re not managing your time well, it opens up a whole world of stress and not feeling good about yourself, which then affects you in the workplace. It can affect your performance and hinder possible advancements and opportunities.
Swisher encouraged the audience to align their core values into their work ethic. She advised them to not let others hinder their time. Colleagues can walk in and out of your workspace and take up so much of your time and you let them.
“What do we do? We stop. We don’t say, ‘Stop, wait a minute.’ We allow them to come in and steal that time,” Swisher said.
Managing time is difficult and doesn’t come naturally. Swisher gave tips and tricks to help women reclaim their time in the workplace and even in the outside world.
“So we have to take control of our workstations, our work life,” she said. “So as an experiment, I want to ask you to journal. Just for one week. Journal a time you were distracted, what was the distraction for, who came in to distract you and how did you feel about being distracted? I bet you at the end of that week you’re going to have a lot of extra time you could have been more productive, only if those distractions didn’t happen.”
