Master your time, and you’ll master your life.   ~ Alan Lakein

I wish I had more time.  I don’t know where the time goes.  If only I had more time, I could make some real progress.  Why am I often late? 

Are your days overfilled, more often than not?  Feeling like life is leading you instead of the other way around?

Do you hear yourself in any of these?

If you think this way, you’re not alone. The percentage of people who feel in control of how they spend their time is only 10%.  So, I know that some discussion on time management is timely – pardon the pun.

Effective time management is one of the most important best practices for achieving your goals while maintaining peace of mind.  Meaning getting the results you want without being stressed out.  Take a minute to think about what it costs you not to invest your time wisely: you’re not so productive as you’d like, so you rob yourself of a sense of accomplishment.  You may have days when you feel frenzied or anxious: that feeling of never being “caught up.” 

To manage your time well is to manage your well-being.

When looking at what’s been keeping you from accomplishing something, your use of time is one of the first places you want to look.  Because a lack of time is not what’s been preventing you from generating everything meaningful to you, it’s probably a lack of focus and planning.

If you talk about it, it’s a dream.  If you envision it, it’s possible.

But if you schedule it, it’s real.   ~  Tony Robbins

 If you noticed that when you read the words schedule and manage, you feel your heels dig in a bit or a part of you say, “Nope,  I don’t wanna do that,” that could be because it’s new or it feels limiting or hard.  If you’re willing to give it a try, you’ll find that it’s really freeing. 

How would it feel to wake up every day not thinking you have to remember what you need to do to be successful that day.  And to fall asleep at night, not worried about tomorrow’s to-do list?  To feel proud that I did it today.  Day after day, week after week, month after month.   You no longer measure your success purely by how much you got done, but by what I did today will give me the life I want… for myself and the people I care about. 

We know that what gets measured gets managed, so let’s look at your schedule.  For the next three (or more) days, write down how you spend your time.  You may want to use a blank calendar sheet that you fill in.  Be specific and account for every hour.  Include everything: time spent sleeping, eating, chatting, etc.  Knowledge is power; you want to know where your valuable time is spent.  Having this knowledge allows you to be very intentional with it, and still have room for fun and everything that’s truly meaningful to you. 

For this next part, you don’t have to wait until the end of the three days.  If you begin after completing the first day, be sure to continue documenting, so you have at least three days for an accurate picture.         Take some time to get clear on any goals you have right now.  Small or large.  For the next week, month, or year.  Be as specific as possible.  Write down all of the steps you’re aware of that you need to take to make progress on your goals.  This will allow you to invest your time in a way so that the actions you take every day reflect your goals, your big picture.  Then all you have to do is follow your plan.   

Now comes the fun part: scheduling and prioritizing.

Taking what you wrote from the three days of monitoring plus your current goals, you can now begin to schedule your future.  Include essential activities: sleep, eating, appointments, and all of your commitments like work and school.

Prioritizing is critical!  Assign to each task a level (in decreasing priority) of A, B, or C.  If you need to, use a D.  Here, you ensure you have enough time for what matters most.  As you move through your days, new opportunities and demands will come up.  When this happens, all you have to do is repeat this triage process. 

An observation about D’s.  As you get skilled at prioritizing, you’ll see your D’s tend to get left undone week after week.  If so, ask yourself why that is.  Are you really avoiding something important, or is it just not that important to you?  If it’s the latter, seeing it incomplete over and over could weigh you down like unfinished business.  Consider “D” ing the D: delegate it or drop it from the schedule. 

Be realistic about the time a task requires.  Many people trip themselves up by minimizing the time they need and then feel like they failed when they don’t reach the goal.  This is self-sabotage at its finest.  Set yourself up to win with realistic time allotments.

Now take a few minutes… what else do you want to make time for that you haven’t… up until now?  

Leave some hours unscheduled every day.  If there aren’t any, create some by moving a task to a later date or dropping a C or a D.  You’ll use the time you create for life’s curveballs, which will happen as they inevitably do.  And on days when they don’t, you’ll have some breathing space for yourself. 

A couple of notes on maintaining motivation for larger projects.  Celebrate along the way: a tool that helped tremendously when I did my doctoral dissertation.  I estimated it would require 1,000 hours.  I scheduled 1-3 hours at a time daily, depending on what the task needed.  If I met the goal, I rewarded myself so that I could feel successful each day.  Rather than ending each successful day with the result “dissertation not yet done,” I could measure my progress as 100%.

For large projects: you’ve heard about breaking a big goal into several pieces that require chunks of time that are realistic to accomplish in a part of a day.  Also, make sure each piece is actionable and measurable.  For example, writing “shed 50 lbs.” or “rewrite employee manual” doesn’t tell me what to do today.  “Eat five servings of vegetables, maximum 2000 calories, and walk at least 20 minutes” and “Read and edit Chapter 1 of manual” does.  Make it measurable so you’ll know if you’re on track to meet your goal.

Now that you have a new way of looking at how you’ve been using your time, let’s revisit the common phrase you read earlier.  Time got away from me.  No, it didn’t.  Aren’t you really saying I didn’t have a plan to let me know how much time I had, or I had a plan yet didn’t pay attention, didn’t follow it?  How do we stay responsible around investing our time?

Be present.  Your state of mind affects how you experience time.  People who invest their time well don’t seem rushed, and they don’t rush you.  Remember:  the goal is a calm you, not a frenzied one.  The people around you will benefit from this as well.  Focus requires and allows you to be present.  Trusting that if you execute today’s plan, your life will happen even if you’re not thinking about all that entails at the moment.  Your schedule and plan will safeguard your goals and dreams, leaving you less worn out by your days, even highly productive ones.  There are so many people getting lots done, yet they don’t feel fulfilled.  Their days feel like a blur.  All that’s missing is being present.

Make deadlines your friend.  As they set you up to accomplish everything you want without being stressed or exhausted.  As Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.”  If there’s no pre-determined due date, create one to set yourself up for a completed task and calm you.  You’ll find that when you are intentional about investing your time, you will have enough of it.

Imagine how fulfilled you’ll feel when you experience days where there’s enough time to generate everything that’s truly meaningful to you.  And some left for fun and relaxation.  That the life you want is happening because you have designed it.

Are you still stuck?  I get it.  It’s tough sometimes to see how you can re-prioritize your time.  A fresh set of eyes can shed more light on where you spend your time which will get you back on track.  I invite you to send your worksheets along to me any time.  I’d love to help you manage your time so you’re ready for the incredible opportunities in front of you!