Summary: Time is not something we can manage or control. However we can set schedules that enable us to get the most important items completed. We must also approach our schedules with a sense of balance and perspective. We need to live balanced lives and avoid becoming a workaholic.
Julie Morgenstern, in her book Time Management from the Inside Out, suggests that we should think about each day in the same way we think about a room in our house. We can fit into that room only as many objects as that room will hold. She writes that "Your days are not infinite and endless...In fact, each day is simply a container, a storage unit that has a definite capacity you can reach." (Page 11)
Let me help you to visualize this idea. Imagine one hour as a cube with the dimensions (1 unit x 1 unit x 1 unit)... one cube of time. A day is a container that will hold 24 of these cubes, no more and no less. We use a schedule to figure out how we are going to fill up each day. If we try to schedule more than a day will hold, something will not fit in... something remains undone and goes onto tomorrow's schedule.
The best that we can do is to use our time productively. Unexpected things are going to happen every day to throw us off schedule.There are always going to be internal and external factors that will prevent us from completing everything on our list of things to do each day. Being productive is mostly a matter of prioritizing what is on that list and focusing on the most important items first. Not a particularly profound idea. However, all of us know how easy it is to get distracted into doing something we would rather be doing. So remaining focused and committed to completing the most important items on our list will enable us to be a lot more productive.
Item Two: Living a Balanced Live, Timewise
So far, so good. We now can visualize the very idea of time and how to maximize our use of what is essentially a limited resource.
Whether we own our own businesses or work for someone else, we have to make sure we get our work done in a timely manner. But we all know how easy it is to get caught up in our job. We lose track of time. We chase success or money. More and more of our time gets sucked into our job. Our family life suffers. We have less time to be with friends or to make time for our hobbies. We lose the time we need just to chill out and recharge our batteries and risk becoming burned out.
Remember that we are people whose lives are not neatly divided into clearly defined segments: the work part, the personal part, the dad part (or mom part), the brother or sister part, the family part. Clear boundaries do not divide our hours as we move from home to work or to play. Our lives are really very amorphous, with our personal lives overlapping into our professional lives, and vice-versa. And what happens at home can easily throw us off at work. And when we have a really bad day at work, we cannot always easily put on our family "faces" when we walk in the door when we get home. When things get out of kilter, life can be seriously stressful and unhappy. When the many elements of our lives are relatively in balance, life is so much more pleasant and much easier to navigate. But no matter what we do, sometimes our lives are going to be very complicated and chaotic. So we really do have a good motivation to work hard to strike a balance in our lives.
So how can we make sure that our schedule works to do just that? Below you will find a great strategy I came across that will enable us to get a truer picture of whether or not we are scheduling our time effectively:
The Plan:
- Make a list of the most important uses of time in your life. My list included Work, Family Time, Time for Friends, Hobbies, and Alone Time.
- Then set up a chart like the one above to track how you want to use your time. This is a time budget you are establishing for your life. If the categories already set up in the chart pictured work for you, all you have to do is save the image, print it and use it as is..
- In the first column, enter the percentage of time each day that you want to devote to each of these categories, Work, Family Time, .... You are allotting a specific amount of time, expressed as a percentage for each category.
- Each day, track how much time you actually spend with your family, at work, etc. Be very honest in your numbers and post them in the column for that day, Monday or Tuesday...
- Tally up the time totals at the bottom of each column.
- At the end of the week, total up the actual hours for each category. Run a total at the bottom of that column, for the total hours spent on all activities that week.
- In the last column, on each row, divide the total number of hours for each category, by the total hours spent on all activities and post it as a percentage.
At the end of the week, ask yourself how well you did. Did your budgeted percentage of time match the actual amount of time you made for your significant other and your kids (if you have any.) And did you make adequate time for your friends? Or were you putting in long hours at the office and neglecting family and friends?
When we market a product, we test and measure our strategies to determine if our marketing efforts are effective or not. This is essentially what we are doing by analyzing how we well are using our time and determining if we are achieving some level of balance in our lives... or not.
If you decide to try using this strategy to bring some balance to your life, let me know how it worked out for you. Your comments are always welcome.
Kindest regards,
Howard Fireman
Productivity Consultant/Accounting
howard.fireman46@gmail.com
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