Time Management Guide, Part 2

Karen Gillison — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 21:23:16 +0000

Take Control of your Time, Achieve Your Goals

Welcome to Part 2 of this series on Time Management. Over the years, I've developed a set of tools that I personally use and have coached others to use to help put us back in the driver’s seat of managing our time. In this post, we'll take action following our findings from step one, understanding where the time goes.

Now that we've completed our time audit, let's dig in to see what we can learn from the data.

When is your best time of day?

As you look at the entries for the past week, do you see patterns to your overall energy levels? What time of day do you feel most energized? When does the energy lag? This is where early birds and night owls might notice big differences. Early birds often find their peak energy in the morning, while night owls tend to feel most energized later in the day. Whatever time of day has your peak energy, make note of it as this will become the cornerstone of your daily planning and the prime time for accomplishing your great work of the day.

On a daily basis, we’ll leverage this time for important work that requires our best focus. This time is too precious to allow meetings and administrivia to creep in. Proactively guard and protect it by blocking off recurring appointments with yourself on your calendar. Decline, reschedule or renegotiate meetings that fall into this window. During this focus time, work on your primary objective for the day, and where possible, turn off notifications so that you can apply your full focus to getting important things done.

If you implement only one thing from your time audit findings, you will reap huge rewards in productivity and feelings of accomplishment from this one change.

In Part 3, we'll learn how to prioritize tasks and maximize your productivity with the Four D's method paired with an Eisenhower matrix. We'll Do what matters, Defer what can wait, Delegate what others can do, and Delete what's no longer relevant.

Time Management, Part 1

Karen Gillison — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 18:06:11 +0000

Take Control of your Time, Achieve Your Goals

Welcome to Part 1 of this series of Time Management. Over the years, I've developed a set of tools that I personally use and have coached others to use to help put us back in the driver’s seat of managing our time. In this post, we'll take the first step: understanding where our time goes.

A frequent question I hear from folks is, “How can I improve my time management?” Sometimes it’s phrased in less direct terms. It may sound more like, “I feel like I’m not getting anything done”, or “I was so busy this week, but I have nothing to show for it”. One thing we all eventually realize is that our time is truly the only valuable resource we have. It can be frustrating when it doesn’t feel like we’re making good use of it, and this is especially true for high achievers. If this pattern continues for a period of time, the blend of being busy and not seeing results can even lead us down the path towards burnout. Don’t worry, there’s hope!

Step 1: Take a Time Inventory

Let’s start by finding out how we use our time today. Relying on our memory alone to fill this out will miss out on small tasks that are easily forgotten but add up to significant amounts of time. The best way to inventory our time is live tracking our time during the week. It can help to set a timer to remind us at each half hour mark.

Track your activities and tasks either in a spreadsheet or on paper, whichever you prefer. As you add entries, take a quick note of how you feel. Mark the entry with a plus (+) if it energized you, a minus (-) if it drained you, or no mark if it felt neutral. Throughout the day, notice your overall energy levels. Mark times when you feel charged and ready to go with an up arrow. Draw a down arrow if you are feeling tired or sluggish.

Free Resource: Google Sheets template to track your own time inventory.

That concludes Part 1 of our Time Management Guide. In the next post, we'll make key decisions to build our ideal day. Stay tuned!

Cover Image by Gerd Altmann

Forem: Karen Gillison

Time Management Guide, Part 2

Take Control of your Time, Achieve Your Goals

When is your best time of day?

Time Management, Part 1

Take Control of your Time, Achieve Your Goals