Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!
Believe it or not, time management is easy.
BUT it’s hard to do well consistently because time may be linear, but energy is not.
What do I mean by “Time may be linear, but energy is not”?
First of all, we know time is predictable. It was discovered and measured over 4,000 years ago and since then we know that a second comes after another, there is roughly 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, and so on.
And too many of us, myself included, we want to manage time and forget that time is already under strict management. A second will come and go, minute will do the same, same with hours, and days, and so on. . .
We Have Time Management Wrong
Since we aren’t masters of time control (if you are please let me know!!), we need to recognize it’s not time we’re managing but Energy.
That’s right – energy is the amount of effort we can put in at any given time. We cannot put more energy than we have, and we cannot expel all our energy in a moment’s notice. Under the law of energy, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can be transferred or transformed.
Imagine yourself in a 5k run (or longer distances), your body is unable to give you more energy then what you have, and once you’re done – you need rest to recover your energy. You can, however, strengthen your energy and create more energy reserve by training. When you train your body, you can go from couch to 5k, 5k to 10k, and so on…
This happens slowly and deliberately – when you work with a coach – it can come easier and faster because their trained to leverage reserves we didn’t know we had.
Again, why are we talking about Energy when the article is about Time Management?
Remember when I said, Time Management is easy. Well that’s true, you can put in our calendar that from 6am to 8am, you’ll go running, BUT if you’re exhausted (energy) you might not be able to wake up because your energy is low and rest is needed for recovery.
Or, you’re procrastinating on a project. The energy you’re using while you procrastinate is still using your finite energy for the day – and when it comes to the project you don’t have the “time” or more realistically, energy to work on the project.
Again, it’s not the time wasn’t there – it’s because we transferred our energy – and time was still there being managed exactly how it’s been for centuries.
Eat the Frog First
Gross! Why are we talking about frogs and worse eating the frog?
I asked the same question and the same reaction when I learned the meaning behind the frog – stay with me for a bit and then we’ll go to Time Management.
Your initial reaction to “Eating the Frog” was probably “gross” – disdain for such a horrific act. But for a second, imagine – you had already eaten a frog. How would you feel after?
And here lies the key to eating the frog, the after effect.
You just ate the frog, a gross act, but you did it. It’s done.
Now, you have all day and time to do whatever you want – you have the flexibility to use your time/energy however you choose. Why? Because the gross, horrific, act of eating the frog is already done.
“Eat the frog” origin dates back to Mark Twain, but made popular by author Brain Tracy. The expression is to do the unthinkable, the gross, high energy cost, activity first. Once you finish that – everything else becomes easier. Everything.
It also gives us confidence to conquer the rest of the day, week, month, and so on.
The principle is doing what you hate, what is on the back of your mind, the item you’ve been procrastinating, first. Get it done and you’ll open up your energy reserves.
If you can do it first, put it on the top of your calendar, your time management tracker, you’ll be better off and time management will become that much easier.
The Art of Managing Time
Personally, I hated time management.
I have a very go with the flow mentality – the world is always in flux, why should I be so rigid with my schedule. I want to do what I want to do when I want to do them – that is Freedom!
Once I learned that Time Management was BS, it was more energy management, that shifted my perspective. Then I learned about “Eating the frog first”, that made so much sense to me – and Time management got easier. A LOT easier.
Over the years, I crafted time management skills for clients and guess what!? Everyone is different, and everyone has their own relationship with time management. Some people are remarkable in how they manage time, some people are remarkable when they have flexibility.
At the core of time management are three aspects: energy management, priority, and scheduling.
Energy management was the key to everything – if I didn’t have the energy, nothing would get done. No matter how much I tweaked my schedule, or how important it was on my priority list.
Imagine your current workload, at the office, home, and everywhere else. You got a lot on your plate – frog included. Suddenly you fall sick – flu – everything on your plate is pushed to the side because all of your energy is transferred to recovering from the flu. Yes, you can function while with the flu, but you’re delaying your recovery by sharing your energy with other tasks.
Remember, you cannot create more energy – whatever’s on your reserve is what you have.
Your priorities will shift, your scheduling will shift, and your energy will also shift. In an instant, your time management is destroyed for the day.
It happens to all of us. So, don’t stress over it – use your energy wisely.
Let’s finally talk about the ART – art is an expression of self. Thus, Art of Time Management is an expression of yourself with time – without energy you don’t have effort, without priority you don’t have structure, without scheduling you don’t have resources.
Here are three things you can do that will forever change how you engage with time:
- Weekly Review and Planning
- Time Blocking
- Eisenhower Matrix
Weekly Review and Planning
This is your energy check.
If you can do this regularly, you’ll be 100x better at managing your time. This takes effort to get started and will make a significant difference in how you move throughout your day. And all I’m asking is 90 minutes over two days during your entire week.
All you need to do is dedicate time for planning (60 minutes) and review (30 minutes).
Doable?
We’ll break down how to utilize these 90 minutes in the rest of the article.
Materials:
- Place to take notes/write
- Writing and note taking materials
- Dedicated time
Planning Breakdown:
- Brainstorming and Categorizing
- Prioritizing
- Time Blocking
Each of them will get about 20 minutes, give or take, depending on the week.
For example, I prefer to complete my planning on Sunday evening – 60 minutes on Sunday is dedicated to everything i need to get done for the upcoming week.
I mean everything – for work, home, social, family, chores, etc. The more, the better. Brainstorming is putting down everything that’s on my list that needs to get done and items I want to get done. Everything.
You’ll be dedicating the first 15 minutes to brainstorming – don’t hold back, put everything that comes to mind on the list. It may seem like you’re done in 5 minutes, but give yourself the additional 10 minutes to stay on it. The list needs to include everything you’ll do the following week. It might make it easier if you have a column for Work, Home, Extra (school, family, etc); while you’re brainstorming.
Once the 15 minutes are done – pause for a second and start categorizing (grouping) certain items together. For example, lunch, grocery, dinner, dinner plans can all be grouped together under “Meal Plan”. Projects, meetings, deadline can be grouped separately. You get to decide how you title your groups and what it means for you. Give yourself 5 minutes to group as many items as possible.
Congratulation! You’ve just spent 20 minutes of your energy in capturing what’s on your mind. The reason this is helpful is because when we don’t create an external list, our mind has to use energy to keep a running list of items – costing us energy. Like a phone charger – even when it’s not plugged into your phone, it’s using energy, but a lot less.
By doing this exercise, you’re decluttering your mind and retaining more energy.
Pause here for a moment, while we cover Time Blocking and how to use the rest of your 60 minutes, and we’ll conclude on how to use the other 30 minutes for review.
Time Blocking
Time blocking is where you block of an amount of time on your calendar.
You can decide how much time you want per block, but I’d suggest creating 2 hour blocks because it aligns with our ultradian cycle – optimal performance. Ultradian cycle is a recurring period of approximately 90-120 minutes throughout the day during which your body and brain cycle between periods of high focus and alertness and lower energy and rest.
During the ultradian cycle, we have about 90-minutes of peak performance, and the rest are used for getting into the activity and winding down. Just like the running example earlier, you don’t just start running at full force, you need time to warm up, and you don’t come to an abrupt stop, you cool down to a stop. Same principle apply here.
When creating your time blocks (scheduling), start with the non-negotiables. This includes Sleep (8 hours), meals, personal, family, and social responsibilities. Often, this won’t change weekly and these are activities that offer rest and recovery for your energy – when these are out of balance, they can cause serious challenges to your time management.
Once you schedule your sleep (8 hours), meals (2 hours), personal, family, and social (6 hours), you’ll be left with approximately 8 hours for work.
This is where everything comes back to the list – your brainstorming and categorized list. You’ll have about 12-16 hours per day, which is 6-8 time blocks. Making it again easier for you to manage your time and be informed about your energy.
Coming back to Sunday (planning day), you’ll spend 20 minutes trying to figure out which days will get which block. In a given day you can only schedule 6 – 8 items, a week totals 42 – 56 items. Now, that’s a big number – meaning when you do this you’ll be able to accomplish a lot in a week, and we won’t do the math for a month but it’s up there.
So, focus on scheduling your time blocks for the week and it should take you maybe 20 minutes. We’ll maybe the first few weeks, it’ll take you 20 minutes, but afterwards you’ll be done in 5 minutes.
Don’t overbook your day – allow at least 6 hours a day for recovery, socializing, and self-care. You don’t become more productive when you force yourself to use more time, thinking you’re being productive. You need to balance your life between work and social, social and work.
Now, comes a challenge – what if you don’t know how much time a certain activity/project will take – how do you budget for it?
For example, I thought grocery shopping only takes me 1 hour, but going and coming back, plus putting everything it it’s place takes me about 2-3 hours – that’s 1-2 blocks of my time. This is also another reason why you don’t want to overbook your blocks, instead of fully booking your day with 6-8 blocks, book it with 5-7 blocks and give yourself flexibility time, which will reduce your stress and make you more efficient.
Don’t block your schedules off just yet, we’ll talk about how to prioritize your time in the next section.
Also, remember that 30 minutes for review, you’ll spend most of those 30 minutes on reviewing your blocks – what took more time, what took more energy, when are you naturally high energy, when are you low energy, etc. all these are helpful as you reflect on the week.
Now, lets focus on the last and one of the MOST important aspect that makes time management easy.
Eisenhower Matrix
Did you know we are masters of wasting time?
Our body and mind wants to conserve energy whenever possible – it’s a survival instinct. Conserve energy for threat, so we’ll be able to defend and protect. Thankfully, that worked during the hunting and gathering phase of our evolution, but these days boring meetings, work, traffic, etc. is the worst of it.
Take charge of your downtime, and create more intentional downtime that actually helps you live a better and more balanced life by learning how to prioritize better.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a way to prioritize your time and resources to optimize your time. In consists of a quadrant to help us identify why we should be spending our energy and time and where we can leave it alone.
Let’s take a closer look at each Quadrants:
Q1 – Important and urgent item that require your immediate attention (the frog) by getting this done, it’ll relinquish the most energy back to you and you can more forward with your day. By avoiding this, it’ll only eat up your energy through stress and anxiety and can become work or have more severe consequences for you. Best to address immediately.
Q2 – Important but you have time, this is where you’ll spend most of your planning and time blocks – if this is done properly, your life will become easier and you’ll master time management.
Q3 – Urgent but not important, this is up to your definition in a work setting this can be delegation, at home this could be outsourcing activities, but this needs to get done. For example, lunch/dinner – you need to eat, but you don’t need to cook you can delegate that activity.
Q4 – Wasting energy and time, it’s on the list for a reason but it doesn’t give much value. For example, poorly planned meetings – it’s wastes resources that could be used elsewhere.
Now, you can take this to your items and categories – start prioritizing and creating time blocks for each item. Remember, ideally 5-7 items per day that includes both work and life.
Once you created and categorized your list, you’ll prioritize per the quadrant, and then start by scheduling your Frogs, then Q2, then Q3, and forget about Q4.
The first few weeks, this may be challenging to prioritize, but give yourself 20 minutes and focus on prioritizing. Example, you can schedule Q1s on Monday, maybe Tuesday, Q2s on Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday, Q3s on Thursday / Friday, Q4s on the weekends (or don’t do it).
Bring it all together
On Friday, dedicating your 30 minutes for review, you want to start with what you accomplished, how much time and energy did a particular item need? Could it be made more efficient? How can you reduce it’s priority so you can delegate or delete from your list?
These are some questions to ponder while you review the week.
Personally, I like to spend Friday afternoons with the review. Going back to Monday and tackling the 5-7 items that needed my attention, find out what caused my distractions, did anything need shifting, if so why?
Then give yourself Saturday to rest and recover take care of personal, family, social items that need your energy.
If you’d like to dive deep into your time management and energy management – schedule a consultation and we can review how to help you make time management easier, so you can start living a more balanced life.
