5 Steps to Get More Time!

The subject line today is a little bit of a tease, I know that.  We both know I can't give you more time - there are only 24 hours in a day, that's a fact and I can't do anything to change that for you.

However, I can help you transform your perception of time.

Here's the truth: you waste a lot, a lot of time!  You do!  On things, actions and thoughts you don't even know you're doing, acting, or thinking.  The result: You feel overwhelmed and stressed, like there isn’t enough time, and like you’re never going to get everything done.  Now to be a high performer means to maximize your time, especially if you are juggling school and sport, especially if you’re a parent who is juggling your life and your kids life and driving from practice to practice.  Time is of the essence for any high performer.


Here are 5 steps to transform your perception of time:

Step 1:  Take a Time Inventory

For one day, record everything you do - I mean everything, including going to the toilet, going on facebook, checking email and even your complaints and excuses about the things you don’t want to do (including this inventory most probably).  Once you can actually see all the extra things you do in a day, you will become present to two things:

How amazing you are to fit all that in to 16 waking hours
That there’s so much more time that you could use productively if you either cut out or cut down some of your unproductive stuff (I would recommend you continue to do a complaints/excuses inventory for the rest of the week to really see how much time you waste complaining about how you don’t have enough time!)

Step 2: Fill in your Calendar

Next step is to take out your calendar and scheduling in your appointments, meetings, due dates, practices, training etc.  Schedule in the things you know you have to do for sure.  I love using ical on my mac because it’s synched to my iphone, so I don’t waste time writing or typing it out into another calendar.

Step 3: Make a ‘To Due’ List

Look at your coming weeks, and make a list of everything you have due.  This is like a ‘To Do’ list, only it has a due date next to each item and a rough estimate of how much time it will take to complete. This allows you to prioritize how you are spending your time.  Then put these due dates into your calendar.  I do it in bright red so that I can see these important ‘to dues’ clearly. 


Step 4: Fill in the Blanks

Working backwards from the most recent ‘To Due’ to today, and so on through all the ‘To Dues’ in your calendar, schedule in chunks of time in your calendar to work on the items that are due.  This is a proactive way to ensure you will have time to work on a project.  I would suggest doing this every time you get a new assignment, or whenever you have a big meet or tournament coming up, so that you can work back to what you commit to do each day.

Once you have finished scheduling in the working time for your ‘To Dues’, you will notice there is still blank space in your calendar.  This is where you schedule in the other important things like driving to a destination, going to the gym (if that’s not already scheduled), watching a favourite TV show, going on facebook, calling friends, doing chores, and even having time just to sit down and do nothing if you want.  By scheduling it, and sticking to the time you have allotted, you become more productive, you still have time for the other important things in your life, and you simply don’t waste time since it’s planned in.

Step 5: Stick to Your Plan

It’s so easy to go off on a tangent.  There will be times when an emergency, or kids, or unscheduled events arise that must be taken care of.  These will definitely throw off your calendar.  Trick here is to reschedule right away to a new spot in your calendar so that you don’t get stuck doing it at the last minute and constantly feeling like you’re running out of time.

I admit that the first time you do this it takes a bit of time, however if you keep adding to the calendar, it becomes a work in progress and the easiest way I know to manage and maximize my time.  And, it takes some discipline to stick to your plan.  You will break it, and at first it will seem weird to be so scheduled.  It might even feel like you’re constrained - stick with it, because having a schedule is actually freeing.  You will eventually feel like all you need to do is stick to it and you’ll get what you want.  And, you always have the freedom to shift it around, it is your schedule after all. So long as you’re not shifting it because you’re going back to your old habits of wasting time.

Once created, it takes about 10min at the beginning of the week for me to schedule my upcoming week, and each day in the morning about another 5-10min.  What it saves me is hours of complaining, stress and anxiety which to me is well worth the proactive time investment to map out my life.

Kara
www.performancetolife.com