How To Regain Time For Your Priorities
It is interesting how differently each of us experience this time of the year even with a modified ‘normal’. I hear my friends and colleagues complaint of not having enough hours in the day for work and home. Others are getting bored and feel the days are very long. I have been in both situations this year.
The best part is that time, like death, is a great equalizer. We all have 24 hours per day regardless of our background, ethnicity, how big or small our financial net worth is, or where we live. I remind myself of this Truth especially on those days when I feel overwhelmed.
Many years ago I learned about the five balls and that influenced a set of principles I created for myself to help me prioritize and remain sane during crazy times.
Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. From Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson
Self-care is non-negotiable. I prioritize exercise by doing it first thing in the morning. On the weekend, I take a couple of hours to prepare food for the entire week. I know I will not have the time or energy to cook healthy food everyday.
Family and friends deserve my undivided attention. Most of us multitask when we are with other people. Sometimes it is evident like when we look at our phone. Or it can be more discreetly like when we are mentally thinking about our ‘to do’ list. When this happens, we are neither spending quality time with the people we care about, nor completing the other task we are doing in parallel. I discovered that it is more valuable to dedicate less amount of time with higher presence.
Eat the frog. In his book Eat That Frog, Brian Tracy defines the frog as “your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it”. When I get overwhelmed by the frog (or frogs), I commit to take a tiny first step. After that one is complete, I take another one. By doing so, I break the inertia and before I know it I am in the flow.
As a leader, people come first. Whether you officially manage people or not, building and nurturing relationships is a key aspect of our work. They are our ‘work friends and family’ and also deserve our undivided attention. When we multitask while interacting with others, we send the message of ‘I have more important things to do or think about’. We have been on the receiving end of that message, and I feel deflated every time.
Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back. Unknown
Here are some practical tips to re-allocate time to what is most important to you
Be very clear on what you are paid to do at work. As we grow in our careers, we are paid to do less tangible things like influence others, lead the team, etc. This transition has been difficult for me because I get satisfaction in execution and seeing tangible results. I continuously remind myself that I am no longer paid to prepare a report, or download data, or create a graph. As I moved those tasks out of my to do list, I now have time to do what I am being paid for.
Remove notifications from your phone and your work email. When we are in the flow and we are interrupted, it takes a long time to reconnect to what we were doing. For this reason, I removed all email notifications at work and on my phone. I keep the meeting reminders because I know that, once I am in the flow, I will need the reminder to stop and transition into the meeting.
You may not be a required attendee to all meetings. I learned that I may not be required to every meeting I am invited to. When the meeting invite does not clearly indicate the purpose and topics of discussion, I reach out to the organizer to find out. That helps me decide where on the list that meeting would be including being off the list.
When meeting others or when doing deep work, hide your cell phone. Put it inside your bag, behind you, in another room, under a cushion. Out of sight, out of mind.
Have your groceries delivered or buy them online and only pick them up. I made a rough calculation, and this allowed me to reallocate approximately 2 hours per week to something else.
Exchange money for time. For example, it takes me approximately two hours to clean my apartment. I decided to use those two hours for something that is higher on my priority list and pay someone else to clean my home.
Time is the most precious commodity we have. Prioritization is the key and it changes: what is due today was not due two weeks ago. We cannot and we should not do everything ourselves personally. Let us allow other people and technology give us a hand so we can use our precious time in the things and for the people who are most important to us.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. J.R.R. Tolkien
What are the tips, principles, and tools you use to manage your time more effectively? Let us know in the comments. You can write in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.
My mission is to help women transform their inner voice from critic to champion, so they can confidently realize and fulfill their potential achieving what they want most for themselves, their families, communities, organizations, and teams.