I recently met a client to assist him with his time
management skills. Our appointment was at 3:00. He arrived at 3:20, very out of breath and apologetic.
As we proceeded with the consultation, I could see why he was frazzled. He definitely
had a lot going on in his day...he builds custom homes so he's constantly here, there, and everywhere, working with his own clients, dealing with supply chain issues, helping his staff solve their challenges, etc.
Plus, he's married with kids and has aging parents who he helps out when he can. He confided with me that his marriage is suffering due to all the time he's working versus time spent with his spouse and family.
During this first meeting, we focused on step one: realizing that if you keep going, going, going, without ever taking the time to breathe, the stress is going to increase and eventually have detrimental effects.
It's important for everyone to work on time management skills.
1. Slow down and get
in control: When everything is happening so fast and you feel like you have way more on your plate than you can handle, you're going to feel frazzled. Managing your time helps you regain control.
He told me he wanted to begin taking back this control and he was committed to doing so. First and foremost, I had him call his wife and schedule a family dinner date out for that coming weekend.
Then we began working on his work schedule for this month and the month ahead so that it was full, but not so full.
The idea is never a schedule
that's jam-packed. It's very important to pad time, in between appointments and activities, as well.
2. Divide and conquer: There are many tasks and activities that are competing for our time and focus. If you try to work on too many at once, nine times out of
ten you're going to get very little accomplished well.
I had my client make a Master List of everything he has coming up that he has to do...just to get those out of his head and on paper.
This immediately helped him feel more at ease. Every task he had on paper was one less task he had to remember.
By the way, "research insurance" or "clean the garage" are not tasks. Those
are big projects. A task is a small piece of each, like "call insurance guy to get question answered" or "put tools that are strewn about on the tool rack."
Then I had him choose just four
of those items to work on today. Nothing else gets added to that list until all four are done.
3. Schedule time for breaks, even when you feel you don't have time to do so: Down time allows you to
recharge mentally and physically. You may feel that finding those all-important peaceful, calm moments when you can just relax is near impossible with everything you have to do. If you are constantly saying to yourself or others, "I have no time to take breaks", it's time to change that belief.
When you don't make time for breaks, you run the risk of getting sick, making mistakes, damaging relationships (family, friends, and work)...and tons of other detrimental effects.
I had him build these relaxation time pockets into his calendar. On some days, this time range was an hour; on others it was several hours or more. Nothing except an absolute emergency (like an unexpected hospital visit) should get in the way of you taking time for these all-important breaks.
4. Make the most of your moments: We all get 24 hours in a day and we have to sleep. Many of us have to work to make a living...full-time or part-time. Some of us have people we're caring for...children, grandchildren, or aging parents.
We can't waste our precious minutes/hours using tools that are not effective, systems and methods (work, cleaning, errands, shopping, etc.) that take more time than they have to, backtracking, constantly correcting mistakes we made, and looking for items we can't find because we inadvertently
misplaced them.
To start, I had my client replace the calendar he was using; while month-at-a-glance works for some folks, he had too many appointments to be using this format. In fact, we
decided that going completely digital was better for his needs and lifestyle. He needed audible reminders. For his personality, relying on "remembering" to look at his calendar was ineffective.
He also purchased a new, faster computer. His old one was old, slow, and buggy and was wasting too much of his
work time.
5. Be proud of what you're getting done...and confident you can do the same tomorrow: When you make good use of time, you will feel proud of what you have been
accomplishing each day. You'll also feel more confident that your tomorrows will be made up of every minute well-invested.
By the end of our consultation, he was already feeling better. No,
we didn't solve all of his time management challenges in that one meeting. Effective time management doesn't happen in a day. However, just the fact that we were in the process of making it better, made him feel more relaxed, confident, and enthusiastic.
