Archive for Time Management
Time Management: Get more time by learning to say No
Posted by: | CommentsTime Management: Get more time by learning to say No
When I run time management workshops one that comes up in almost every training session is how to say “No” effectively.
If you can say No with confidence to activities that you shouldn’t be doing at work then that will free up your time so that you can get home earlier and thus have more time to work on your dreams and goals.
The short video below will give you some tips to help you get better at saying “No”.
Download my 6 Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk
Posted by: | CommentsDownload my 6 Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk
Just to let you know that, by popular demand, I have recorded my Six Steps To Lead The Life You Want To Lead talk and it is now available as a 1hr MP3 download. For more details click here. http://leadthelife.net/products/audio-training/
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 3
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Three
Mentally change how you look at your schedule
A few weeks ago I had a particularly busy week and the Thursday was a very long day which I was dreading. I was quite tired at the time and even though it was only Monday I was fretting about how I was going to get through the week, especially the Thursday. When you are overwhelmed it is very easy for future events and activities to prey on your mind even though they haven’t happened yet.
In order to make the week feel better instead of thinking of it as a very long and tortuous Monday to Friday I broke it up into two segments: Monday to Wednesday followed by Thursday to Friday. That way the busy Thursday no longer overshadowed the preceding days. When it arrived I got on and dealt with it as best I could and then it was over and done with.
When we are too busy we have to play tricks with our minds to relieve the mental burden of what is on our plate. In doing so we can reduce the stress that it causes which helps us to have enough physical energy to get on and do what has to be done.
Bonus Tip
While the three tips in this blog series will help you to reduce feeling of overwhelm when coping with your workload and juggling of other commitments there are times when may have to ruthlessly offload some of your obligations.
If you don’t have enough time to do the things you want then you have to find a way to stop doing some of the activities that you don’t really care for.
There may also be occasions when you take a complete break from an activity, however dear to your heart it may be, in order to give yourself sufficient time for rest and recuperation. While it is possible to burn the candle at both ends for a while your mental and physical health will suffer if you do it for too long.
When you have been able to take a proper break you will gain fresh perspective on your situation and may well find a more sustainable way of managing your work, family and other projects
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part One
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Two
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 2
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Two
Pretend you only have one thing to do
When there are too many urgent tasks in your day or your week, the thought of them stacking up in from of you can lead to stress and mental paralysis. You can end up getting nothing done or feel too tired and stressed about what lays ahead.
If it is not possible to offload some of these tasks then just pick one that needs doing now (if several need doing now still pick just one of them) and just say to yourself “All I have to do is this.” In doing this you are switching your outlook to one thing that is doable instead of focussing on an overwhelming list.
Whether it takes two minutes, two hours or two days, it is much easier to focus on getting one thing done and completing the task than worrying about everything else. When the first task is done then apply the same technique to the next item on your list – “All I have to do is this”.
Human beings respond better to success than to failure so being able to tick off just one task as completed from your list is better than doing random bits of several activities and never feeling that anything is finished.
You can also use this approach to manage different sections of your day. For example if you have to take the cat to the vet after work and then visit a sick relative you might feel so overwhelmed about what you have to fit into your evening that you are stressing out all day about it. However if you say to yourself “All I have to do is go to work” and then “All I have to do is go to the vet” and then “All I have to do is have a cup of tea with Aunty Mary” you can give your full attention to each of these activities without worrying about what follows.
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 1
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 3
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part 1
Posted by: | CommentsHow To Deal With Overwhelm – Part One
Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t
When you are overwhelmed by having too much to do it is easy to get distressed about other activities that you would love to do but just can’t get around to. Maybe you are very busy at work but you would like to spend some time on your own project such doing something creative or finding time for a hobby. Or maybe you have a lot of commitments this week and are panicking about how you will get enough time to exercise or see your family.
When this happens it is easy to focus on and get upset about what you can’t get done. You find yourself thinking or saying stuff like “I’d love to do that but I can’t because I haven’t got time” or “I really wish I could write more this week but I can’t because I haven’t got time”. Instead of getting stuck in the “not enough time = I can’t” pattern it is easier to think of what you can do.
OK, so you might not have enough time to commit to a weekly yoga class but you can do a few minutes of stretching when you get home from work before you start cooking dinner. Although you would love to write up a business plan for your new product ideas your client commitments mean that you can only write out some skeleton points but at least you can complete these in more detail in small chunks of time between appointments.
When you switch to an “I can” mindset from “I can’t” you will start to find little windows of time where you can do quick productive tasks. Even though it may not be as pleasing as having great swathes of time to do your project exactly as you wish, it is better to make progress in small increments albeit at a slower pace rather than get stressed and miserable at what doesn’t seem to be possible.
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Two
How To Deal With Overwhelm – Part Three
Time Management Tip – Parkinson’s Law
Posted by: | CommentsTime Management Tip – Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s Law says that an activity will take all the time that you allot to it. If you have a report to write and you think it will take two days then you’re right – it will take two days. If however you get a sudden phone call from the boss who says that he needs it by the end of today – hey presto – magically you get it done today.
You can’t defeat this law – but you can play it to your advantage. Use Parkinson’s law to decide how long you want a specific activity to take. Decide that you want to finish preparing course material by the end of the day. Decide that you will catch up on some emails by lunchtime. Decide that you will return five phone calls between now and your next meeting.
In making the decision you are thinking about what you need to get done, stating an intention and then focussing your mind on getting it done. This means that you are more likely to be successful at completing the task or tasks within the given time frame than if you hadn’t made the decision and just allowed yourself to drift through the day.
How To Make Time For Important Activities
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I give time management training one of the tips I suggest is to recognise when you just don’t have time to do a particular activity, you stop trying to shoe-horn it in to an already stressed and busy life and say – “I just don’t have time to do this at the moment.” The three words “at the moment” are important. They mean that you are not admitting defeat to ever getting around to a task; instead you are making the decision that you just don’t have space right now or are not willing to prioritise it. These three words leave the door open to the fact that you do fully intend to do the activity at some point in the future. You can then stop exhausting yourself trying to do it all safe in the knowledge that this is just a temporary hiatus on the activity.
For me this meant that I could not continue to do all of my marketing and networking activities for Lead The Life and have enough time to devote to writing a book. Now that the manuscript is more or less complete I am really enjoying picking up the marketing activities again.
American coach, Michael Neill, uses an analogy of fitting rocks, pebbles, sand and water in a jar to illustrate how to prioritise our time. The challenge is to fit as much of the rocks in the jar as possible. It all comes down to in which order you put them. If you put in the water and sand first then there isn’t room for the pebbles and the rocks. If you go for the pebbles first then you still can’t get the rocks in. The trick is therefore to put the rocks in first then let the pebbles fall into the space between the rocks. The sand can then fall into the remaining spaces and you can top up the jar with some of the water.
As far as time management goes, the rocks represent the activities that you really want to do. Fit those in your day and your week first. Then fill up the remaining time with less important or less fun activities. If you let your time get filled up with the wrong stuff then you won’t be able to fit in what is most significant to you.
One of my rocks has been writing the book and my pebbles have been other ‘should do’ activities. The book was such a large rock that I had to make some tough decisions on the other pebbles. Of course, if I stopped my marketing activities forever then my business would grind to a halt but for the time it took to get the book written they were a necessary exclusion.
What are you trying to squeeze into your life right now that just doesn’t fit? Would it be less stressful to say – “I just don’t have time to do this at the moment?” Can you make plans for when it is more possible in the future?
Is Time Management In The Mind?
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve always been fascinated by time, and my use of it. Part of this comes from the fact I help others with their time management, but mostly it is because feeling that I have enough time for everything I want to do is very challenging for me to achieve.
Recently I have been doing some consulting on a three day a week basis. While this has been great for cash flow, it has been less great in terms of the time I have to devote to growing other areas of my Lead The Life business. When I take into account the travelling time each day to my consulting client there isn’t much of the day left. Evenings have tended to be get home, make tea, do my Buddhist chanting, watch TV for about forty minutes and then it’s time for bed. It feels like there is no time for anything else. The commute to this client is slightly longer than I would prefer and I feel that I am short of one hour in the day. If there was a way of conjuring up that additional hour it would make a huge difference to my creative output and general sense of well-being.
However, over the past few days I have decided that I no longer want to be defeated by this situation and have banned the phrase “I don’t have time for that” from my mind. Instead I am determining to do one small thing towards my creative output or my business on each of these busy days. I have discovered that this provides an excellent opportunity to send out follow-up emails to those where I am pitching for business as well as to re-connect with people with whom I have formed a relationship in the various networking circles to which I belong. I’m also spending a few minutes here and there developing a new marketing plan for Lead The Life. This is quite naturally resulting in a series of tasks to be performed that I can then carry out as my daily ‘do one useful thing’.
