The first thing I can tell you about Time Management is that it is possible. With the craziness and chaos of family life and growing a business, sometimes it seems that nothing gets done. I had the priveledge of seeing Stephanie Frank speak last night and she had some amazing tips crammed in to a 25 minute speaking window. I am going to share them with you and if you apply these 2 simple techniques, you will be on your way to success in managing your busy schedule.
1-How to make the right decision without wasting time over it
You know when you need to decide about something and it just does not feel right? You get a knot in your stomach or a lump in your throat? Here’s how to make decisions that feel right every time.
Make a list of everything that is of value to you. Don’t spend more than 10 minutes. Some examples are; Family, Spirituality, Freedom, Independence, Honesty, Security, Integrity, Wealth, etc. Once you’ve listed about 10 important items, go back and organize them into your top 3. When you are considering making a decision, if it is right, you will feel it (like in your gut) because it will honor your values. If it doesn’t feel right, you can go to your top values and determine which of them it isn’t supporting. If for instance, Family is one of your top values and your 9 year old son has a baseball game but you also have a networking event on the schedule, you know you should support your son, but also support and grow your business. If you decide to go to the networking event, you may feel that ’sick’ feeling in the pit of your stomach which indicates that your values (family) are not in line with your decision. If you go ahead with your decision to go to the business event, you will feel bad about your choice and therefore may in turn sabotage your own business efforts which will just create a setback for you.
2-Your ‘to do’ list
Do you ever have days when you have 24 things on your to do list and by the end of the day you still have 28 things on it? (Yes, I meant to increase that number, seems like my 24 always ends up a few ‘to do’s’ higher than when I made the list).
As mothers and business women, we tend to get pulled in so many directions it’s difficult to accomplish even the smallest of tasks. Here is a great analogy, again from Stephanie’s speech last night and also on a video she’s done. There are 86,400 seconds in a day…and everyone has the same amount. But what if each morning that was $86,400 sitting in a pile at the foot of your bed? And every second, $1 flew out the window? You’d find a way to put as much of that money into a productive pile and as little into the wasteful pile.
Create yourself a calendar and put ‘focus time’ of at least 1 hour per day on it. Pick out the most important things on your to do list and schedule them within that focus time. That is your productive time and the time that you need to spend on the things that will grow your business and put money in your pocket. The rest of your list can go on the calendar as you see to fit it in and some of it will just not get done. You need to be able to #1 ask for help or delegate some of the things or #2 forgive yourself when they are not done.
If you can implement these 2 simple suggestions right away into your daily planning, you will find an amazing difference in your personal satisfaction. And as everyone knows when you are happy and feeling like you’ve accomplished some things, everyone in the family is happy.
Tags: making decisions, scheduling, Time Management, wasting time