Time Management: Why Most Courses Are Teaching You Complete Rubbish

Last Tuesday, I watched a bloke at Melbourne Airport frantically juggling three phones while his coffee went cold and his boarding announcement echoed overhead. He'd clearly attended every time management seminar known to humanity, colour-coded his calendar within an inch of its life, and probably had seventeen different productivity apps fighting for space on his home screen.

He missed his flight.

This got me thinking about the absolute state of time management training these days. After fifteen years consulting with businesses across Australia, I've seen more failed time management implementations than successful ones. The problem isn't that people don't want to manage their time better – it's that most courses are teaching theoretical nonsense that falls apart the moment real life hits.

Here's my first controversial opinion: The traditional "urgent vs important" matrix is outdated garbage for most modern workers.

Stephen Covey's famous quadrant system worked brilliantly when people had secretaries, when emails came in manageable batches, and when "working from home" meant you were probably skiving off. But in 2024? When your urgent and important categories are overflowing while everything else feels like luxury you can't afford? It's about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

The real issue with time management isn't systems – it's psychology. Most courses treat time management like it's a spreadsheet problem when it's actually a human problem. They'll teach you to block out chunks for "deep work" without acknowledging that your brain might be fried from dealing with three crisis calls before 9 AM.

I learned this the hard way about eight years ago when I was running workshops for a Brisbane-based mining company. Taught them all the classical techniques – time blocking, the Pomodoro method, priority matrices. Six months later, productivity had actually decreased. Why? Because I'd given them more systems to manage instead of addressing the core issue: they were drowning in reactive work.

Here's what actually works, and it's going to annoy the productivity gurus: Start with subtraction, not addition.

Most professionals I work with aren't struggling because they don't know how to prioritise – they're struggling because they've said yes to too many things. Your calendar isn't a Tetris game where you need to fit everything in. It's a garden that needs regular weeding.

The best time managers I know are ruthless about three things: they say no early and often, they batch similar tasks together, and they protect their energy like it's more valuable than their time. Because it is.

Take Sarah from Canva – brilliant at this stuff. She blocks out two hours every Thursday afternoon specifically for saying no to things. Sounds mental, but she uses that time to review requests, delegate what she can, and politely decline everything else. Her team's productivity shot up 40% once they stopped being meeting-addicted.

Now, here's my second controversial take: Most people would be more productive working four days a week than five.

I know, I know. Sounds like millennial wishful thinking. But I've seen the numbers from clients who've trialled this. When people know they have limited time, they stop filling it with fluff. They skip unnecessary meetings, they batch their communications, and they focus on what actually moves the needle.

The traditional 40-hour work week is an industrial relic that makes about as much sense as fax machines and dial-up internet. Yet we cling to it because... well, because we've always done it that way.

Real organisation and time management starts with understanding your natural rhythms. Some people are sharp at 6 AM and useless after 3 PM. Others don't hit their stride until 10 AM but could work productively until midnight. Most time management courses ignore this completely, assuming everyone operates on the same biological clock.

Here's what I tell my clients in Sydney: Track your energy levels for two weeks before you optimise anything else. Note when you feel sharp, when you feel sluggish, when you can handle complex thinking versus when you're only good for admin tasks.

Then design your day around your energy, not around conventional wisdom.

The whole "eat the frog" concept – doing your hardest task first – is brilliant if you're a morning person. If you're not, it's a recipe for starting every day feeling defeated. I learned this when I tried to force myself into an early morning routine for six months and nearly burned out completely. Turns out my brain doesn't switch on properly until about 10 AM. Once I stopped fighting this and scheduled my complex work for late morning and early afternoon, everything clicked.

Another thing that drives me mental about traditional time management advice: the obsession with perfect systems. You know the type – they spend three hours setting up the perfect task management system that saves them twenty minutes a week. It's productivity theatre, not actual productivity.

The best system is the one you'll actually use consistently. If that's a notebook and pen, fantastic. If it's a sophisticated digital setup with automation and integrations, great. But don't change systems every month because you read about something shinier.

Between you and me, I've watched executives spend entire afternoons customising their task management apps instead of, you know, actually managing tasks. It's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, except the deck chairs have colour-coding and integration with seventeen other apps.

Here's something most courses won't tell you: time management is largely about emotional regulation.

When you're stressed, everything feels urgent. When you're overwhelmed, you lose perspective on what actually matters. When you're tired, you make poor decisions about how to spend your time. No amount of colour-coded calendars will fix these fundamental human realities.

This is why stress management training should be the foundation of any serious time management program. But most courses skip this entirely, focusing on tools and techniques while ignoring the psychological and physiological factors that drive poor time decisions.

I've started incorporating mindfulness and stress reduction techniques into my time management workshops, and the results are remarkable. When people learn to recognise their stress signals and manage their emotional responses, their time management improves naturally. They stop making reactive decisions and start thinking strategically about their priorities.

One more thing that bugs me: the myth of multitasking. Despite decades of research showing that task-switching destroys productivity, people still brag about their ability to juggle multiple things at once. It's like bragging about being able to walk and chew gum – sure, you can do it, but why would you want to do either badly?

Focus is a superpower in the modern workplace. The ability to single-task, to give something your full attention for an extended period, is becoming increasingly rare and valuable. While everyone else is scattered across seventeen browser tabs, the person who can focus for two solid hours will absolutely dominate.

This brings me to my final point: most time management problems are actually boundary problems.

You're not bad at managing time – you're bad at managing other people's expectations of your time. You're available too often, you respond too quickly, and you've trained everyone around you to expect instant access to your attention.

Setting boundaries feels uncomfortable, especially if you're naturally helpful or worried about seeming unresponsive. But it's essential. Start small – maybe you check emails three times a day instead of constantly, or you batch your phone calls into specific time blocks.

The people who respect your boundaries will adapt. The ones who don't... well, that tells you something important about them.

Look, I know this isn't the typical time management advice you'll hear. Most courses will teach you about priority matrices and productivity apps and the magical power of to-do lists. And some of that stuff works, for some people, some of the time.

But if you've tried all that and you're still feeling overwhelmed, maybe it's time to try a different approach. Start with your psychology, not your systems. Focus on energy management, not just time management. And remember – the goal isn't to cram more into your day. It's to make sure the things you do actually matter.

Time management isn't about efficiency. It's about effectiveness. And sometimes, the most effective thing you can do is nothing at all.