Running Time Management with EFT workshops

Note - This article was first published on Gary Craig’s Emofree website in 2010. I’ve had students and practitioners tell me over the years how much they have benefited from the knowledge I shared. To enable that continued sharing of knowledge I’ve asked EFT International to reprint the original as it is no longer found elsewhere.

Time Management Courses in Bucharest

In 2009 I was invited to give my first corporate EFT workshop abroad. I’m sharing my experiences here to show how easy it is to include EFT training into a business skills course for executives.

My training company was asked to provide time management courses for a public body in Bucharest, Romania, that deals with the enforcement of business law. I gave a series of morning workshops over a week, and was also paid to provide drop in clinics for staff to do more focused one to one work.

Traditional time management courses and self development books teach strategies for coping with too much work. The resources I researched acknowledged that stress lies behind poor time management. However, they could only include tools to cope with stress. Common suggestions were meditation, physical exercise and breathing techniques. As we know, EFT neutralises specific stressors permanently. Consequently there is a HUGE gap in the market for including EFT in this field.

My audience was made up of lawyers, economists and directors within the organisation. Using skilful language to bridge EFT to this audience is vital. Additionally, this type of audience can be nervous about referring to their emotions in a workplace setting. However, as stress and time management result from poor emotional balance, I had to find ways to talk about emotions in a positive stance.

Strategies used in delivering these workshops:

In laying the foundations before I brought “EFT out of its box”, I asked them to gather evidence of how their emotions affect their performance. I invited them to remember a time when they were under time pressure at work, and mention how they felt. We also talked about good experiences in managing time. Discussing what hindered their performance and what helped them brought out the emotional connection clearly.

I spent some time talking about perspectives as it’s important to teach EFT within a framework that will help evolve thinking. Tapping will get rid of the emotional charge, but people still need new ways of approaching a topic to then create positive change going forward.

One perspective I covered was how emotions affect the choices people make. This in turn impacts the success of their work. We noted that everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. Yet some are more successful with their time than others. I used examples from well-known peak performers who’ve overcome life threatening challenges. This brought to life how emotional focus can overcome slim chances of success.

Pareto's rule

Other parts of theory I covered were the importance of planning and prioritising, breaking large projects down into easy to handle chunks, and the importance of Pareto’s rule. The last is an economics principle that is well-accepted in business management. As a generalisation it explains that for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. So in relation to time, it could be said that 80% of results come from 20% of the work carried out.

The projects we spend a focused amount of time can deliver massive benefit. At the end of the previous day create a priority list of tasks. The next day start with the top priority task. That will get them closer to an 80% level of output as they are not distracted by lesser value tasks.

In sharing EFT I make explicit the connection between feeling stressed and limits on personal productivity. After showing them how to tap using basic language, we worked on individual examples of time stress.

Through many rounds of EFT I built up their personal evidence of the relief they can gain from using this tool. Given that my course was only 3 hours long, I taught them how to use mechanical EFT and suggested a 15 minute daily routine to ease stress on the subject of time.

Some limitations

It is important to note limitations in the training due to the shortness of the course. Seasoned EFTers know it takes time and practice to develop skill in the technique. I explained there are more sophisticated techniques within EFT for quicker success and pointed them to free online resources or further training if they wished to develop their skill. This is where clinic sessions included as part of the course package are valuable. Staff were able to come see me privately about time stressors that needed more skillful help.

I only gave a one page handout that provides reminders about the tapping points and how to do basic/mechanical tapping. This might seem counter-intuitive. Most business courses I attended in my career as a lawyer handed me copious amounts of information as a follow on. With the best intentions in the world, me and my colleagues would put these in our drawers meaning to go back. Invariably, we never found the time. The next time we cleaned out our cupboards the manuals would end up in the recycle bin. I saw this happen in countless offices, not just mine. I wanted to encourage my audience to do EFT, rather than spend time reading about it. So I kept the handout short and simple.

Staff were free to attend if they wished, and in general I had mostly female staff members attending. By the end of each course there was excitement about this unusual tool that really worked. I even had some staff repeat the course as they enjoyed it so much and bring other colleagues with them.

Positive feedback

This was the feedback I received from the program director, who worked for a UK government department:

Sejual Shah provided a week long series of Time and Stress Management workshops with EFT under an EU Twinning Phare project at the Romanian Competition Council. During the week she also ran one to one clinics for staff to help them with practical problem solving. She was professional, engaging in her style of presentation, and taught effective cutting edge tools to groups that included high ranking directors. Staff commented that they were surprised and delighted at how practical the workshops were. Sejual balanced her presentations, mixing theory with results-oriented work so that staff have a self help technique they can use to improve their performance. This results-focused approach to training is what workplaces have been seeking for many years. Sejual’s commitment to provide ongoing support to staff demonstrates her desire and ability to help people make more of their careers.

I look forward to involving Sejual on future projects as I think this type of training has the ability to transform workplaces and make them more effective and enjoyable places to be.  John Emeruwa, Project Director, UK Dept for Business, Innovation and Skills (As department then named)

Sejual Shah  is an EFT International Trainer of Trainers and Practitioner in the UK. She helps execs with career growth and confidence issues. Since 2008 she has pioneered ways of delivering business EFT courses to large companies at home and abroad and loves coaching other practitioners to do this as well. She has developed Business Energetics, a spiritual tool that includes EFT for profound business growth. Her coaching website is www.healthyinmind.com, and her EFT training courses can be found at https://eftclasses.co.uk/

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash