Impatient people do not make good time managers

It’s said that patience is a virtue and this certainly holds true in practice. It is even truer in this fast-paced society where rushaholics are in the majority and companies seem to believe that faster is better. Although patience is sometimes mistaken for sloth, it’s the patient ones who are the most effective time managers. They tend to think things through before they act and focus more on results than activity. Here are five characteristics of patient people. Do you qualify?

1. Patient people fully intend to accomplish all their goals but they don’t expect it to happen overnight. They recognize that time is their ally, not their enemy, and that all goals can be accomplished, given a realistic time frame.

2. Patient people are not thrown off balance by momentary delays. They utilize idle time by working on other tasks. For example, they set the table while the bread is toasting instead of peaking impatiently into the toaster every few seconds to see how brown the bread is getting. They compose a memo while a report is printing, sign documents while on hold and read a book while in a lineup.

3. Although patient people utilize idle time and waiting time rather than get frustrated by the delay, they seldom perform two activities at the same time if both activities require their attention. So they don’t drive while applying makeup or read the paper while eating dinner or write a memo while listening to a speaker.

4. Patient people do not exhibit an extreme sense of time urgency. They don’t push elevator buttons three or four times, never run up “up” escalators and seldom rush to fill an empty space in a revolving door. They don’t interrupt others while they’re talking, never tailgate when driving and seldom complain when someone is late for an appointment.

5. What patient people may lose in physical speed, they more than make up for in mental agility. They plan before they act, think before they speak and research before they report. Consequently they make good decisions, wise choices and sound judgments, achieving above average results.

How can one gain patience? Through practice. For example, drive a little slower, pause before you answer, and occasionally be the last one off the bus. Let the dryer go through its full cycle, resist the urge to open the microwave door before the buzzer sounds and let a co-worker finish their explanation before answering your own question. Every so often, stay in bed until the alarm goes off, sit quietly in the car for a few minutes before entering the house and relax before turning on the TV set. Take a longer, more scenic route to work, walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator and spend a few minutes greeting other members of the staff before tackling those voice mail messages. In other words, slow down. Change your routines. Take a break. And above all, realize that a wasted minute does not lead to a wasted life.