Where does your time go?
Last week we talked about setting priorities and deciding on which actions you want to take on a regular basis to support those priorities. But if you are a human being, you have no doubt experienced the feeling of the day, weekend or week coming to a close and wondering what you have actually done during this time.
This issue leads to two problems. First, the fact that you are not intentionally choosing actions but rather are being led from task to task according to some set of priorities which is not definitively yours almost guarantees that your higher goals and priorities will not be met. Second, this leads to unnecessary negative self talk as we tend to focus in on the things we didn’t get done at the end of a time period rather than leaning in to the feelings of accomplishment and alignment from the things we did get done.
So how can you get better about being more deliberate about your time and about managing larger blocks of time, like weekends, time away from work, evenings which are relatively unscheduled.
- Plan your schedule in advance
- Update it meticulously
- Analyze what you actually did
- Make todo lists
- Adjust the above based on reality
Plan Your Schedule In Advance
Each member of your family needs a calendar. Each shared topic needs a calendar. In my own situation, I have a work calendar, a personal calendar, one for each of the kids, one for activities, one for dinner and so on. I block my work times out in broad strokes – I have separate scheduling software for my work appointments. I put onto the calendar the things I want to be doing on a regular basis in order to support myself – so on the calendar is meditation, exercise, cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, evening routine etc. When we prep for the week ahead, we assign a dinner to each of the dinners – could be leftovers, or take out or fend for yourself, or it could be a planned meal. Whatever it is, everyone in the family knows what to expect.
Of course, all the regular stuff goes on, like appointments and events. I like to note on here time away for close friends and family, call schedules and the school schedule for PD days and holidays. Our family uses google calendar, but I don’t think it matters at all what technology you use so long as everyone you are co-ordinating with has easy access to read and modify events and it is easily used from whatever technology you have at your finger tips.
Schedule in relaxation time when you can see that you will be having a very busy few days. Schedule in extra work blocks when you know it will be a crunch time. Plan on an easy supper and nothing scheduled the day of a the kids’ music exam or other stressful event. Try as much as possible to line up realistic plans taking into account the context you can see will be present.
Look at your calendar every day – I do morning right now because then I can adjust if I slept poorly but I think there are good arguments for in the evening. Review your calendar in depth on a weekly basis – we do Sunday mornings – to make sure groceries and dinner are arranged, kid pickups are co-ordinated and you are aware of any unique appointments. Update your calendar immediately as things come up OR have a fool-proof method to add things to the calendar on a weekly basis. Take a look at the month as a whole toward the end of the previous month. Teach your kids to put things on the calendar and reward them by never scheduling over their events.
Update Your Calendar Meticulously
OK, so far your calendar is like your time budget – I will wake up at 5:30 AM, throw in a load of laundry, exercise for 30 minutes, shower, change the laundry, prep delicious Pinterest worthy breakfast for the kids, fold the laundry and head out the door with plenty of time to make it to work 30 minutes before I need to be there….dreamland, am I right?
What really happens? Your alarm goes off at 5:30, you hit snooze a couple of times and drag yourself out of bed at 5:48 AM. You exercise for 12 minutes and then hop into the shower. You realize you forgot to throw a load of laundry in so you do that and then make coffee. You zone out on Facebook, and then realize you forgot to wake the kids up so you do that. You screech out the door and arrive at work just in time for your first commitment.
Updating your calendar meticulously with what ACTUALLY happened in your day is crucial to managing your time and your mind. In this case, just note what you did – Slept in for 18 minutes, Exercise for 12, Shower, Relax/Coffee for 45 minutes, drive to work moves later etc. If you can meticulously keep track of how you actually spend your time, you will be able to make changes and prioritize activities that move you closer to your goals.
Calendaring is like food journalling. It’s natural to feel that if we didn’t write it down it didn’t happen. But the fact is, we did spend that time sleeping in, relaxing, checking in on Facebook and if we want to make changes we have to really understand why we are doing those things instead of adhering to our ideal plan. The key here is to stay in loving non-judgemental curiosity. Remember, we are gathering data here. We are figuring out why we are not sticking to our plan. We are recording what we are doing instead of our plan.
Analyze What You Actually Did
As you update your schedule, note what priority these activities are serving. On social media, is it more friendships, news awareness, numbing out or relaxing that is driving you, or maybe procrastination or avoidance of a larger task that you don’t want to tackle. When sleeping in, is it because you are having trouble getting to bed on time, you are having disturbed sleep or your plan is unrealistic with respect to how many hours of sleep you are allowing yourself.
Ideally, you will have your list of top priorities along with some maintenance areas that you can easily identify activities as belonging to. You will start to get a sense of what priorities are dominating your time. Work is an obvious one, but if in addition to working your regular hours, you find yourself checking work emails, responding to after hours concerns, talking to your partner about work drama, you may need to consciously set some boundaries or make sure your overall priorities are in alignment with allowing work tasks to take over your “free” time.
Especially if you have young children, you may find that parenting and household tasks dominate your unscheduled time. While you may want to do some of these tasks personally, make sure to keep an eye on what kind of things might be outsourceable. Perhaps washing, drying and folding your toddler’s laundry is not the activity which serves your highest priorities in life. Perhaps simpler meals with pre-prepped raw veggies would satisfy your family during the week and you can save cooking time for the weekends.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to be absolutely scrupulously truthful about what you are doing. As an example, I was doing this work for myself and I noticed that 2-3 times per week, I was hitting snooze and sleeping in for 30 minutes. As a result, I have shifted my wakeup time by 30 minutes and my restedness (and related productivity) have never been higher. If you don’t know how you are spending your time, you cannot make adjustments that lead to you leading a more intentional and fulfilled life.
To Do Lists
I can hear the groaning through the inter webs now. These will be a modern twist on todo lists. Every day that you have a significant chunk of unallocated time, create a quick todo list of all the things you would like to accomplish. No censoring, no evaluating, no judging – just get it all down on paper.
Next step is to note which priority area each item falls into – if you are like most people, these will be primarily of the form – work, self care, house and yard, relationship with significant other, friendships, parenting and so on. Probably some of them will naturally fall into focus areas in your life like exercise or blogging or your new business. Just pick an initial couple of letters and make a quick note next to each of the items.
Now identify tasks which someone else could do. Mark these with a star or other symbol.
Recall your list of priorities – I asked you to choose your top three most important and the next three very important but more in maintenance mode. How well do your priorities align with your todo list? Certainly there will not be complete alignment. Rearrange the todo list so the items at the top are the ones for your highest priority areas.
Make a guesstimate as to how much time each thing will take – go for quick rather than painstaking accuracy.
Compare the amount of time you have estimated to the amount of time you have available. Draw a line where your time ends. Items above the line will get done. Items below the line will not get done.
At the end of the day, when you are updating your calendar, take time to soak in and appreciate all the things you chose to do and did AND all the things you chose not to do and did not allocate energy towards.
TL;DR
- Identify priority areas in your life
- Plan your schedule in advance and anticipate higher stress times
- Update your calendar faithfully
- Use todo lists to make sure that your top priority areas are getting action
- Adjust your planned schedule and priorities based on reality
Time allocation required?
15 minutes once in a while to identify priority areas. 5-10 minutes daily to plan and record your activities. 15-30 minutes weekly to review and co-ordinate with other people in your family. 5-10 minutes to process and organize your todo lists when you have a chunk of allocatable time.