Time Management: Stop Kidding Yourself About Being Busy

My mate's assistant sent me a calendar invite for "coffee catch-up" scheduled three weeks out because apparently that's the earliest they can squeeze me in between their "strategic planning sessions" and "stakeholder alignment meetings."

Right.

After fifteen years watching Aussie businesses pretend that being busy equals being productive, I've got some uncomfortable truths to share about time management. And yes, I know everyone's heard this before, but clearly nobody's listening because half the managers I work with still think multitasking is a superpower and the other half believe that working 70-hour weeks makes them business heroes.

Let me be blunt about something controversial: most people who claim they "don't have time" for proper planning are lying to themselves. They've got time to scroll Instagram during lunch, time to have fifteen-minute conversations about weekend footy results, and time to attend meetings that could've been emails. But somehow, they can't find twenty minutes to actually plan their week properly.

Here's what really gets my goat - and I learned this the hard way when I was running my first consultancy back in 2009. I used to pride myself on being "always available" for clients. Phone calls at 8pm? No worries. Weekend emails? Absolutely. I thought I was providing exceptional service. What I was actually doing was training everyone around me that my time had no boundaries, which meant it had no value.

The wake-up call came when a client casually mentioned they assumed I didn't have much on because I always answered immediately. Ouch. That stung because it was completely true - and completely my fault.

So here's my first controversial opinion: being instantly available makes you look desperate, not dedicated. Proper time management training should start with teaching people that availability is a choice, not a default setting.

The biggest time management myth I keep hearing is that Aussie workplaces are "too fast-paced" for traditional planning methods. Bullsh-- sorry, absolute nonsense. I've worked with mining companies in the Pilbara, tech startups in Melbourne, and accounting firms during EOFY madness. The fast-paced ones are usually the most organised because they have to be.

Want to know what really wastes time? Decision fatigue. When you're making the same small decisions over and over because you haven't established systems. Like that manager who spends ten minutes every morning deciding which emails to tackle first, or the team leader who holds impromptu meetings because they never scheduled regular check-ins.

I was guilty of this myself until about five years ago when I started using a simple priority matrix that I learned from some workplace communication training I attended. Changed everything. Not because it was revolutionary - it wasn't - but because it forced me to stop pretending every task was equally urgent.

Here's where I'll probably lose some readers: I think the whole "work-life balance" conversation has made time management worse, not better. Bear with me on this one.

Everyone's so focused on protecting their personal time (which is important, don't get me wrong) that they've forgotten how to be genuinely efficient during work hours. Instead of working smarter, they're just drawing harder lines between work and life while still being completely chaotic during the actual workday.

Real time management isn't about balance - it's about intention. Being intentional about when you work, how you work, and what you work on. It's about recognising that checking emails every twelve minutes isn't "staying connected," it's attention deficit disorder in a business suit.

The most productive people I know - and I'm talking about CEOs, department heads, even successful tradies - all have one thing in common. They've accepted that saying no to some things means saying yes to better things. Sounds obvious, but apparently it's not because most people are still trying to do everything for everyone.

I watched a restaurant manager in Brisbane absolutely nail this concept. She stopped taking "urgent" inventory calls during service hours. Stopped. Completely. Said suppliers could email her and she'd respond within 24 hours, but service time was for service. Revenue went up 18% in three months because she wasn't constantly distracted during peak hours.

That's not work-life balance - that's operational intelligence.

Now, about those productivity apps and systems everyone's obsessed with. Here's my second controversial take: they're mostly procrastination dressed up as progress. I've seen people spend more time setting up their "productivity system" than they would've spent just doing the actual work.

The best time management tool is still a basic calendar and the discipline to use it properly. Everything else is just digital fidgeting.

But here's what actually works, based on what I've seen succeed in real Australian workplaces:

First, time-blocking. Not just scheduling meetings, but blocking time for actual work. I mean putting "Write quarterly report" in your calendar like it's a client appointment. Because it is - it's an appointment with your future self who'll be panicking if you don't do it now.

Second, the two-minute rule, but with a twist. If something takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. If it takes more than two minutes but less than twenty, schedule it for later that day. If it takes more than twenty minutes, it needs proper project planning. Most people skip that middle step and wonder why their days feel chaotic.

Third - and this one's going to upset some people - stop attending meetings where you're not contributing or learning anything meaningful. I don't care if it's "expected" or "good politics." Your time is worth more than being a warm body in a conference room.

I learned this lesson during a particularly awful period where I was attending seventeen meetings per week. Seventeen! And contributing meaningfully to maybe four of them. The rest was just corporate theatre. Time management training sessions often miss this point entirely - they teach you how to manage your schedule without teaching you how to protect it.

The hardest part about implementing real time management changes isn't the systems or the apps or the colour-coding. It's dealing with other people's reactions when you start respecting your own time. Some colleagues will push back when you stop responding to emails within five minutes. Some clients will test your boundaries when you establish office hours.

Let them.

Because here's what I've learned after working with hundreds of teams across Australia: the people who respect your time boundaries are usually the ones worth working with anyway. The ones who don't respect them were probably taking advantage before you set the boundaries.

And for the love of all that's holy, stop wearing exhaustion like a badge of honour. "I'm so busy" isn't a personality trait - it's a warning sign that you've lost control of your priorities.

The most successful people I know in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, and everywhere in between have figured out that being selective about commitments isn't selfish - it's strategic. They understand that doing fewer things well beats doing everything poorly.

Maybe it's time we all started taking our own time seriously. Not just the big chunks like holidays and weekends, but the daily moments that add up to whether we're running our schedule or our schedule is running us.

Because at the end of the day, time management isn't really about time at all. It's about energy, attention, and having the guts to admit that not everything that feels urgent actually matters.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a "coffee catch-up" to reschedule for next week instead of next month. Some boundaries are worth breaking.