During many of my coaching sessions and conversations with peers, friends and family; a subject that always comes up is the matter of not having time to do things, not having enough energy to focus on priorities, or having too much to do with too little time… It is ashamed, I have felt the same many times, and at a point in my life it became an overwhelming feeling. However, I decided to take action, and learn how to manage that feeling by learning better ways of looking at competing priorities: work, home, and life to balance myself and my inner peace. So inspired by many of my coworkers, friends and people I coach, here are my lessons learned:
1. Time Skills: To get the best out of life, apply some basic time management skills. These boils down to two key principles: finding balance of personal priorities and responsibilities; and preserving our “own time” from unwanted distractions. Time is squander but also too precious to squeeze. It is a discipline but like any other skill, taking on step at a time will help to master the final outcome to have that balance. I like to approach: Urgent Vs. Important by Steven Covey in his book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits)
2. Know what matters: No one should devote their life entirely to a single priority: that could result in extreme asceticism or unbroken concentration upon, say, parenting, work or art. Any time we devote to ourselves is time we’re not giving to another; any time we spend on beauty is time not spent on compassion. Such exclusions are inevitable. If we know what matters, we’ll be able to adjudicate between conflicting demands when they occur.
3. Re-Think: Do a major time management audit at least every 4 months. Consider which routine activities are intruding into our quality of life, and whether we could shed any of them. How is our life-work balance treating us? Where are the stresses in our week, and how could they be eased? This is the time, too, to think about whether major changes might be desirable – for example: moving into a new house, or planning a different kind of vacation. Make sure that we come out of our audit with at least three concrete decisions for change, however modest.
4. Checking the Boxes: Write a list of prioritized tasks in a notebook each day to focus our mind, with a little square box alongside each one. Check the box once we’ve completed the task – a simple but effective way to keep on top of crowed and evolving to-do list. It takes practice to get that habit into our system; it is one step at time with the purpose in mind to become more organized, that will be helpful. “I really learned to do this, and it gave me a safe place to know where to start and finish my day”.
5. Today’s Work: The word procrastination derives from the Latin word “crastinus”, meaning “belonging to tomorrow.” Do not fall into the trap of believing that we’ll have more time to tackle a tricky task or project tomorrow than today – the reality is, we’ll probably find ourselves as pressed for time then as now.
Adpated from 1,001 Ways to Live in the Moment – by Barbara Anna Kipfer
Action Item:
· What can we do NOW to empower ourselves to manage our priorities in a savvy way?
· What can we do differently to be more driven and proactive for our time management?
Enjoy!
