Lately I have been finding myself feeling very busy. My mind is always occupied with tasks to complete, issues to address, emails and WhatsApp messages to reply to, meetings to attend and most importantly relationships to nurse so I don’t die a lonely chatless death :). And of course this is while raising a young family. The To Do list is never ending. Many can relate to this I am sure. I have also been noticing this heavy feeling of not having made progress towards my mission, despite all the busyness, I am left with this feeling at the end of the day that I didn’t move one step closer to my goal nor do I have the feeling of being in the moment, that I have experienced my day. I am basically finding myself being run by the day rather than me running the day.
And true to what I wrote in my previous article, I started asking myself, what do I need to sow to feel that I am in charge of my day, so that at the end of the day I feel satisfied with what I did and what I chose to do with it. A few of the things I have done to address these are; Reading and listening to time management guidelines, I am a firm believer in arming yourself with knowledge and these readings gave me tools to work with. One of the works I really liked is from Rory Vaden, self-discipline strategist and New York Times Bestselling author, he pointed out that it’s not really about Time Management but about Self-Management (video). His view is investing a bit of time on assessing yourself, your day and where your time is going, because everyone has the same amount of hours in a day, and time will pass whether you manage it or not. It’s more about managing yourself, and what you decide to put into the hours.
In this post I share the three things that I have learned. Three simple steps that from experience are not easy to implement because they require discipline and persistence. But nothing good comes easy, right?
Blocking off time – This is a technique that promotes focused deep work and encourages you to be intentional with your time whether it’s towards your work, personal projects, learning, family time, friends etc. With the technique you divide the day into blocks of time with each block dedicated to accomplishing a specific task or activity and focus on that during that blocked time. This post gives more detailed information on the technique and how to use it. I was attracted to the technique because it promised what I needed, i.e., to improve focus and concentration on tasks / activities at hand and minimize my procrastination. It was not easy for me to get in the habit of doing it. But I persisted, always remembering the words of Aristotle “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” I had to learn to close off all email and messaging apps during those blocked times and refrain from checking, as knowing myself, I would respond or start thinking of responses or acting up on the requests. I had to also learn to do the blocks realistically and flexibly so that I don’t get disappointed and give up if I did not complete something in the allocated block. For instance, I know that I am most creative in terms of generating ideas in the morning and more in the mental space for design work on quiet afternoons or late evenings. Thus it does not serve me to put these tasks at the wrong time of the day. The trick is also to keep re-assessing at the end of the day, and plan better the next day and not give up if it does not go according to plan as it does when e.g., my daughter is ill at home. Start with planning a day, then a week, then a month, and a year (admittedly harder).
Learning to multiply your time – As you plan your day, learn to invest in spending time on things that will create more time for you in the future. Ask yourself, what can I do today that can make tomorrow better or give me more time tomorrow? For example, could I automate something or delegate it or say no to it, should I for instance, spend a few hours searching for a good cleaning company that will save me hours every week, time that I could put towards something else that could maybe earn me more than what I am spending on the cleaning? Rory Vaden gives nice guidance on how to multiply your time.
Being present for the experiences – I have had so many instances where I was cooking, taking a shower, on holidays, or playing with my daughter and I couldn’t describe to you what those experiences were like, because in my head I was somewhere else, planning a reply to an email or message, or writing a blog post, thinking about something I could have done better. While to me it felt like I was being efficient (doing many things at once), I have however started to notice that there are things that are suffering. Thus one of the biggest learning in self management was learning to be present for the things I choose to spend my time on, when I am at work, work, when I am playing play; when I am on holidays, really be on holidays. Life is about experiences. When you are more present, you are also more appreciative of having the experiences, and happier.
While there are many more other tips out there, these were the most meaningful for me in leading me to feel like I have control of my day.
Before I close off, I also have to say that it was not lost on me that the majority of the time management advice came from books authored by males. From just Googling ‘Time management books’, 44 out of the top 51 book results were by males (that is 13,7% of the books were by females). Even just from this 15 best time management books list, only 1 book is written by a female. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it made me reflect on that there is a lot of time in the day for a woman with kids that is not her own to manage, from taking care of the kids, house, family, etc, that even finding that 15 – 20min to plan the day is elusive in some instances – but it is also why it’s more important that as women we persist and allocate that time in the day to work on what we find important to ensure we reach our goals.