I have recently been writing about habits and I started thinking about how I use my time, I used to be one of those who always talked about how much I had to do and how little time I had to do it in, somehow I still had time to watch a few hours of Netflix every day and spend way to much time on my phone, does any of this sound familiar?
"The most empowering thing you can do when trying to reclaim time for ourselves is saying…NO!"
I realized that I hadn’t re-evaluated my personal and professional goals and I was just on autopilot, it was time to sit down and create new goals. Re-establishing goals creates clarity because it lays out the road map for the next three, six and twelve months or whatever time line that you have set.
Learning how to prioritize your daily tasks can be the real challenge because so many things can pull us in multiple directions and get us off track. If you are new to planning out your day a good place to start is by writing down three to five tasks that you want to accomplish, you don’t have to be too granular here but make sure that the daily task are going to help you achieve your long term goals. We want to create habits that are centred on how we use the finite amount of time in a given day.
Have you every found you start negotiating with yourself when planning out what we are going to do on a daily basis? There are things that we would like to do but there are always external forces that trying to pull us away. The most empowering thing you can do when trying to reclaim time for ourselves is saying…NO. It’s okay to say no and its something we need to do more often! How will you ever accomplish your personal goals if you are always doing things for everybody except you?
"If you are new to planning out your day a good place to start is by writing down three to five tasks that you want to accomplish".
You have to plan out your day or you will head into the day scrambling, too many days of not planning will quickly halt any of the gains that you had made with your new time management habits. There are many ways to plan out your day, you can write it down on a sticky note, use a day planner or calendar or your phone. I would suggest actually writing it down.
In order to actually get your tasks completed you then need to eliminate external distractions. One of the biggest distractions we have is our smart phones! They can be a powerful tool in our lives but they are also a powerful distraction. Being able to connect with everyone anywhere at any time is great but can be a huge distraction. Putting them in another room on silent, turning them off completely or just turning your phone over so you cannot see notifications is a great way to stay focused on the task at hand.
The last thing that will help with managing yourself is to take time for yourself. We often over extend ourselves and what gets sacrificed is usually sleep and regular exercise. There are many studies linking regular exercise with managing mental health and stress levels. So why not use your new task list to schedule in your workouts, walk outside or me time?!
There are several steps to smart planning so start small, set some new goals, focus on what’s important and take care of your self. You can’t get anything done long term if you are over stressed and exhausted.
Coach Steve Volke