Building Blocks for Managing Your Time

Do you remember that old Calgon commercial – the one with the beleaguered woman drowning in a sea of barking, crying, and phone ringing? The traffic...the boss...the baby...the dog...that does it! Calgon, take me away!

That was in 1980 – when most phones still had cords. Imagine her stress level now that we can be plugged in and connected almost without boundaries. We are almost perpetually under assault by beeping, buzzing, alarming, popping alerts and interruptions. We live in a culture of interruption, and that can make it especially hard to feel like you are in control of your time.

Good time management requires a combination of vision and discipline. It starts with a good sense of your goals. Then you have to understand that you have the same number of hours in the day as everyone else in the world and you will have to make choices about how you allocate your time.

Last week we talked about doing a time audit to see how you are actually spending your time. Once you are able to see whether you are making choices that support your goals or choices that squander this precious and finite resource called time, then you can start making some more productive choices.

We all know what activities are the most important for us in reaching our goals. If you want to be an author, you need to write. If you want to complete a marathon, you have to run. If you want to be a successful sales person, you need to get in front of more qualified prospects.

So the next building block, if you will, of time management is a practice I call time-blocking. Once you’ve identified your most essential work, you need to schedule a specific time for it. Put it on your calendar, close your door, let the phone go to voicemail, turn off your email alerts, get a babysitter. Do whatever you need to do to protect this time. In order to gain control of your time, you need to make the distinction between what is important and what is urgent, because urgent (especially someone else’s urgent) doesn’t necessarily equal important.

Next time you think: I really ought to…. or I wish I done… or I should do more…. Don’t waste another minute regretting the day slipping away; time-block it.

What do you need to do today?

(If, by chance, coordinating meals and meetings is on your must-do list, make sure you make time to visit Vmeals. It will be the best use of 8 minutes you ever spent!)