"A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went."—JOHN MAXWELLIf you're like me, you're not great with your time. I often find myself wondering where my time went. Whether a day at the office or a relaxing vacation, so often I look back and wonder why I didn't get more done. I feel like I'm a time sponge. I suck up any extra time, and it's not that I was being lazy. I just wasn't being efficient.
Instead of telling my time what to do, I was left wondering where it went. There's a better way to handle your time, MAKE A PLAN!
As I write on time management, I have to admit that this is certainly not my strong point. In fact, really I'm writing this as a way to give myself some public accountability to do a better job of being intentional with my time. And I didn't come up with any of these ideas. This is my compilation and application of various books, articles, and talks I've heard on time management.
To understand why we waste time, we first have to understand the different ways we use time.
Four Things We Do That Take Up Our Time
In a past post called, How to Look at How You're Spending Your Time, I wrote on the four ways we spend time. When you look at your day in light of these four categories, you can probably figure out quickly where you're losing time. You can learn about how you're using your time by considering whether activities are urgent and important.
NOT URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT - Waste Zone
Some things we do have absolutely no urgency or importance. Watching TV, playing Candy Crush, or reading 25 lists on Buzzfeed may be fun but, as individual activities, they don't have much value. A fair amount of rest and relaxation is important, but many of the specific things we do for relaxation just eat up our time.
URGENT & NOT IMPORTANT - Distraction Zone
In life, some things feel like they urgently demand our time, but they simply aren't important. I probably receive 150 emails every single day, I get 15 Facebook notifications every single waking hour, and my cell phone gives every person with my number instant access to quick communication with me. The problem is that most of these messages aren't important.
- Text messages
- Social media notifications
- Unplanned phone calls
- Impromptu meetings
URGENT & IMPORTANT - The Stress Zone
The most stressful use of our time is both urgent and important. We must get something done by a specific time, or there will be consequences. We find ourselves in the stress zone for usually one of two reasons: (1) We didn't plan ahead, (2) Crisis occurred. The less margin you have in life, the more stressful it is when something that is both urgent and important comes up.
NOT URGENT & IMPORTANT - Productivity Zone
The sweet spot for productivity is when you can work on something which is important, but not urgent. This tends to be when you do things that are most fulfilling, and with the most margin to really matter. When we fail to do important things when they aren't urgent, they eventually become urgent.
Think about your relationship with a friend or spouse. If you never invest in that important relationship, eventually you'll have problems. Suddenly, it becomes both urgent and important to invest in the relationship. The same is true of your car. If you don't do important maintenance routinely, eventually your car will break down.
The Secret to Maximizing Your Time
If you spend hours upon hours every day watching TV, you don't need me to tell you that you're wasting your time. Likewise, if you're surfing Facebook all day at work, you know why you don't get anything done.
Where you feel that your day has escaped you is when you spend your day in the Distraction Zone & The Stress Zone. Instead of you deciding in advance what to do with your week and days, the most urgent event steals your time away. So, while you might not being lazy, you aren't being efficient, and you're not really sure why.
Look back over a recent day where you felt you really were working hard, but you just didn't feel like you made any progress. Most likely, you spent your day responding to what was happening around you as opposed to pro-actively deciding your destiny for the day.
So how do you maximize your time?
Budget your time! Tell your time what to do instead of wondering where it went!
Lock time into your schedule in advance to make major progress on important but non-urgent things. And, save specific time to address urgent but not important things. Always leave margin in your schedule for when a crisis does come up.
Budget Your Days and Weeks
What do you do?
Well, I don't think your best bet is to just make a to do list. To do lists are intimating and demotivating. They focus on how much has to be done instead of how much of an impact you can make.
I prefer to look at each week and consider what I want to accomplish each week. What are the things which are IMPORTANT to accomplish this week? Once you've complied that list, suddenly it's much easier to budget your time.
Start by compiling a list of the most important things to accomplish, and WHY they're important. The WHAT can be overwhelming, but the WHY is inspirational. When you make this list, make sure it is as inspirational as is possible. For me, sending emails to youth leaders isn't particularly motivational. However, empowering a team of volunteers to positively influence the next generation of believers is. So, create a list of inspirational goals for each week.
From there, break down that list into action points to accomplish that goal. This is where things start to appear more like a to do list. However, unlike a to do list, this list is related to accomplishing specific goals. If you miss a point, but accomplish the goal, you're still doing fine.
Once you have a list of objectives to accomplish, take the specific action points and schedule them throughout your week. For me, when I did this process this morning, I was left with a full day of free time. Now of course, I didn't accomplish all of today's tasks. I accomplished all but one of the important things I needed to do today but, because I scheduled my time, I don't have to worry about the one thing I didn't accomplish. I have time to still accomplish all that is important.
Final Thoughts
I personally use Evernote to schedule my time. It has the option of creating checkable lists. I have a template for my work day; It lets me decide how much time I want spend on each activity, and it gives me a way to track what I've accomplished. This guides my time, holds me accountable, and tells me what I need to carry over to my next day.
The most important thing is making sure you're taking charge of your life. You decide where you want to spend your time, and then do it! I have no magic tricks to give you the motivation to do so (I struggle to do so myself). But, if you can decide to tell your time what to do, you can make far more of your time.
What are some things you do to help maximize your time?
What are some things you do to help maximize your time?
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