Decluttering Your Calendar
Do you wish there were more hours in the day? Are you always running behind and not getting enough accomplished? Well, STOP! It’s time to rethink your time management.
Time management is not about buying fancy calendars. It’s about making your days meaningful and rewarding to you so that you can calmly accomplish the tasks you need to accomplish and still have time to spend on the important things in life. Time management is not about getting 100 more things done in a day. Rather, time management is about “doing fewer things that are of greater importance in the time that you have.” (Quote from Harold Taylor, Time Consultants, Inc.)
So, how can you better manage your time? Start by eliminating unproductive behaviors that sabotage your productivity and your effectiveness:
- Multitasking – There is no such thing! You can only effectively concentrate on one thing at a time.
- Cutting sleep – Makes you less productive and grouchier.
- Speed – Don’t compromise speed for quality.
- Slave to technology – Email and phone interruptions keep you from focusing on the task at hand.
- Inflated self importance – It’s not all about you!
- Lack of respect for your needs – Don’t forget about physical needs and the importance of relationships.
Now let’s see how to create a calendar that keeps you calm, focused, and productive.
- Spend time planning – This will allow you to ensure that the important tasks are accomplished and the unimportant tasks are delegated or eliminated.
- Plan time for yourself first and put that time on the calendar – family, friends, personal, creativity.
- Plan your day around being healthy – exercise, rest, healthy meals, and relationships.
- Create a 24-hour schedule – plan for work, rest, dining, social, fun.
- Make a grid of your tasks and classify them as urgent and important, urgent and not important, important and not urgent and not important and not urgent. Delete the not important and not urgent tasks. See if there are other tasks that you can delegate or eliminate. Put the remaining tasks on your calendar and make sure to allow 50% more time to accomplish the task than you think it will take.
- If you have frequent, unavoidable interruptions, schedule only 1/3 of your calendar so you can handle the interruptions and still get your tasks accomplished.
- Schedule time for email and returning phone calls – don’t be a slave to the phone and email.
- Remember that silence and empty space are good.
The struggle is to let go of things you don’t want to do and don’t have to do. Don’t feel guilty about dropping off of committees, eliminating useless meetings, and not volunteering. Learn how to say “no” and you will have that uncluttered calendar. You really do have the power to make choices about how you spend your time!
So take time each week to create plan your time and enjoy your calm, rewarding, and productive life.
