Giving back the gift of time
For the last four years, Smarter Not Harder have been delivering free time-management training programmes for employees of charities and not-for-profits all over the UK.
More than 50 delegates are crammed into a meeting room at the 7stars suite in Bush House on the Strand. Right on time (as you would expect!) Simon Goodison, one of the founders of Smarter Not Harder (SNH), marches in and asks if anyone likes mangoes. Immediately, there is a hum of excitement. This is clearly not your typical training course.
Within the first five minutes, the mango question is sorted, the agenda for the morning boxed up, and the group already have several key tips on time management tucked away in their notebooks.
SNH pride themselves on being able to cram a day’s worth of training into just two and a half hours (this is a time management course after all!)
But this is not the company’s usual SmartWorking training programme. Since 2015, SNH have run a free programme for charity delegates every month. Thousands of people have taken part to date, and the initiative continues to grow in popularity.
“I love the energy at the charity events. Often the delegates are complete strangers, which adds a bit more spice to the group exercises and really drives honesty and new ideas. You can tell everyone is really invested in the process.”
— Simon Goodison, SNH Director
With many charities stretched in terms of budget and resources, time management really is crucial. SNH research shows that, by following their simple guide, individuals and organisations can improve productivity by around 15% - without investing any extra time or effort.
The ‘penny-drop’ moments come thick and fast, adding to the positive vibes in the room. From Parkinson’s Law to ‘eating frogs’(!), the attendees are given easily-digestible information without having to sit through hours of theory or endless break-out sessions.
Many of the concepts are simple, but are delivered in such a way, it makes you wonder why you hadn’t thought of them before:
Why are we so much more productive the day before we go on holiday? Why do we always set meetings to run for an hour when they could easily be wrapped up in 40 minutes? Why do we let email rule our lives?
Here’s how one delegate explained the benefits of SmartWorking:
“I found the training enlightening and I knew as I was sitting in the room that afternoon, it would change the way in which I operated through my working day. Small changes to the way in which I meet, email and schedule my time have yielded phenomenal results. I’ve managed to save time each day, schedule myself rewards for doing so and spend more dedicated quality time with each of my children, which is actually the best result for a busy mum like myself.”
— SmartWorking delegate
For the SNH team, the monthly charity days have become part of the fabric of the organisation - and helped them take SmartWorking to thousands of hard-working people who really need it. Not only that, it has driven wider collaborations, pro bono agreements and corporate CSR initiatives within larger organisations. Some of SNH’s regular corporate customers have been delighted to get involved, dedicating their own time and resources to providing meeting space and helping coordinate sessions. Simon firmly believes everybody deserves to have a healthy work-life balance – especially those who dedicate their careers to helping others – and the SNH team are committed to continuing the charity project.
“We’ve learnt a great deal from running these programmes. What we thought was simply a nice thing to do and a way of helping out the charity sector, has turned into a much more significant long-term initiative. Working with these delegates has given us a fresh perspective on the very concept of time management - and it is incredibly rewarding to know you are making a difference in the important work they are doing.”
— Simon Goodison, SNH Director
If you would like to get involved in working with SNH to help charities all over the UK, please get in touch
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Giving back the gift of time
For the last four years, Smarter Not Harder have been delivering free time-management training programmes to charities and not-for-profits all over the UK
