Not Enough Hours with Owen Fitzpatrick
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Not Enough Hours is a series that looks at how we organise our time. In our increasingly busy lives, we now are living by schedules. We rush round, stressed, trying to keep up with our imposed timetables, permanently chasing our tails. We ignore or suppress the signals our bodies and hearts are sending out.
Over this eight part series, expert Owen Fitzpatrick takes a number of case studies - among them a workaholic whose home life is suffering, a family man who feels his career isn't thriving, a self employed publisher who is working 20 hour days and can't switch off - and encourage them to take stock of their lifestyles and reassess their priorities.
Owen Fitzpatrick Psychologist Time Management Expert
He has run seminars in Life Management across the world from Colombia to Japan. He is co-author of "Conversations" with Dr Richard Bandler. He is one of Europe's top Motivational Speakers, Personal Development Trainers and the youngest ever Licensed NLP Master Trainer in the world. Owen is a qualified Psychologist, Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist. He has a Masters in Psychology, and he has trained people in Ireland, Britain, Europe, Mexico, India and the United States of America, teaching them how to enhance their lives.
Since becoming the youngest ever qualified Hypnotherapist at 17, Owen has worked continuously with those suffering from depression, fears, phobias, panic attacks, shyness and relationship problems, helping them to own their brains and change their lives. He's now worked individually with thousands of people in these areas and countless more in his trainings. He is recommended by and has co-trained with Dr Richard Bandler (co-founder of NLP and best selling author).
Conor Holmes is the first to be featured in the series. He is 44-years old and lives in Naas, Co Kildare. He runs his own small publishing business Outside The Box Learning Resources, which he set up nearly 4 years ago and is a self confessed workaholic, working up to 20 hour days. He is married to Kate who works in the business too and they have four children, Rachael 21, Jemma 18, Mark 16 and Ben 10. Conor is often up at 4.00am to work and finds it impossible switch off from his business. His home life is suffering and he admits he has a problem with his work/life balance.
Conor Holmes - Case Study
The first episode features Conor Holmes, a self confessed workaholic from Naas, Co Kildare. He runs his own publishing company that he set up with his wife Kate nearly four years ago but unfortunately this has come at a cost to his family, who hardly ever see him. He has four children, the older three were slightly luckier in the fact that growing up they got to have a bit more time with their Dad, unfortunately, Ben, has suffered the most, as being the youngest he was very young when Conor's business was set up, therefore he hardly sees him now. Sunday used to always be a 'kids day', now the children are lucky if he does something with them once a month. He readily admits that his wife Kate, does more with the kids and is a better mother to them than he is a father. Prior to setting up his business, he was a Sales Director and he was also working many hours in this job too.
He works 70 - 80 hours a week minimum and very rarely ever switches his laptop off. In fact his laptop goes everywhere with him, even on holiday. If he watching TV, his laptop will still be within arms reach. He will attend conferences which could be in any part of the country and which sometimes means a 4am start. He knows that sometimes he should just turn down some conferences he is offered, as they are not always financially viable but at the moment, he just can't say no.
Not only is he totally dedicated to his business, he also trains the under 16 football and has just become honourary secretary of his golf club. In fact the golf course is the only real place where he can totally switch off.
He has no clock in his office and never wears a watch. He has no wall planner, so he has no way of structuring his activities.
Conor believes that the reason he is working so hard, is to provide financial security for his family but he has to ask himself the question 'Would his family prefer to spend more time with him or his money?'
Conor wants to change not only as a person but to change his priorities and has drafted in the help of Owen Fitzpatrick to do this. He would like to be as impulsive with his family as he is with his work but just finds it very hard to do so. He just doesn't seem to have an 'off switch', so Owen's job is to change his whole work ethic.
Owen's Help
Owen's advice is simple but effective, it is vital what's in Conor's head be written down on a list, so as he can structure his activities. This simple principal applies to all of us, you can save more than 20% of your time by doing this. Owen devised a simple matrix that helped Conor priortise, he was asked to give Owen in percentages, how much time he would focus on the following items:-
. FIRST QUADRANT -
Crisis Management Tasks (Important / Urgent)
. SECOND QUADRANT
Work that will have long term benefit (Important / Not Urgent)
. THIRD QUADRANT
Tasks he can delegate (Not Important / Urgent)
. FOURTH QUADRANT
Non essentials (Not Important / Not Urgent)
For the 1st Quandrant he answered 35%
2nd Quadrant he answered 15%
3rd Quadrant he answered 25%
4th Quadrant he answered 25%
He was effectively wasting 50% of his time doing what's not necessarily important. If Conor got up at 4am, he didn't necessarily start work straight away, in fact if he started working as soon as he got up, he would in fact be able to leave earlier.
Owen gave Conor rules he would have to adhere to if he wanted to prioritise for a new and less stressful life:-
. Leaving work has to be a deliberate act
. Close down his computer, closing down the office would have to become a ritual
. Put the phones on to answering machine
. And in Conor's case, locking away his laptop until the next day!
Tips for Mums or for people who would like to prioritise or organise their time better.
If you find yourself chasing your tail to keep up with everything, running out of time and being expected to be a super mum, accomplishing everything from being your children's taxi service to organizing the entire household, here are some simple tips which you can use to handle things more effectively.
1. PLAN IN ADVANCE. For example, decide on the different meals you will have for the week and save yourself repeated shopping trips. One or two trips shopping in the week is enough when you have planned ahead. This will save lots of time.
2. USE TO-DO-LISTS. Writing down what you have to do is a wonderful way to free up your mind and make sure that you keep on track. Also write down your shopping lists to make sure you remember everything.
3. PRIORITIZE YOUR SCHEDULE. Schedule in all of the things that you do on a weekly basis and examine how you can cut down on or cut out altogether the non important tasks for the important ones. Quality time is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Schedule it in.
4. BALANCE YOUR TIME. Make sure you spend adequate amounts of time for yourself (ME time) with your Family, for the work you have to do and for other things. Your family time should NOT be just looking after the family.
You must make sure it is time together you all enjoy! You need to look after yourself too!
5. LEARN TO SAY NO. Every time you say YES to something you are saying NO to something else. In creating balance you should be saying YES to each of the areas of your life. Remember saying NO to extra jobs, you are saying YES to yourself or your family.
The Final Test
Just to see how far Conor had come, Owen decided to give him one last test. He arranged for someone to call him and pretend that they wanted him to be part of a conference a couple of days later. Owen knew that Conor had already decided to do something with his family that day, so it was a real test. Luckily Conor made the right decision and told the 'bogus' caller, that he couldn't help her on this occasion.
The Outcome
Since meeting up with Owen and the 'Not Enough Hours' team, Conor's life has taken a real change for the better. He's still very busy, in fact even more than before, but he's learned the skill of priortising. He also restricts himself to working no longer than 10 hours per day and that's including travel time!! There is an odd exception to this for exhibitions and the like but in the main he's strict with himself. He now has more available time to spend with the lads and attend their matches and other events but if there was a regret it's that the girls are at the age when spending time with their boyfriend and friends is far more desirable than spending time with their dad. He just wishes the opportunity had come along earlier...!