This morning I destroyed a spider web…for about the 27^th time. A spider has decided it really wants to make a home in the corner of our patio and I keep thwarting his efforts. My first thought this morning was, “My goodness, that’s a persistent spider!” At first I decided to write this week’s blog about the power of persistence and diligently applying your time to a task without giving up. Then I had a different idea.

The Real Message

After I thought a little bit more, I realized something: that spider will never successfully build his web on my patio. Ever. Every time he builds, I will continue to knock it down. However, there are numerous places in my yard that I would allow him to stay. In fact, if he were even a few feet higher up on the wall I’d probably let him stay because I’d need a step stool to reach him and ain’t nobody got time for that.

So what are you saying Emily? That being persistent is a waste of time? That we should all just give up on our dreams because they are never going to happen?

Changing Your Strategy

No. I’m saying that knowing when to change your strategy is just as important to your time management as knowing when to stick with it. If you’re throwing a lot of time at something and getting nowhere, maybe you need to rethink your plan. It’s not giving up, it’s called adapting.

So thanks for the life lesson, spider. Sorry for destroying your house, but seriously, give it up already.

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Photo Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

I don’t know which government agency decided weekends should only be two days long, but this weekend made me realize we need a change. Please tell me where to send my strongly worded letter of support for the 3-day weekend because I’m ready to write it. Here’s why…

Two-day weekends are too short. You have a huge buildup of excitement on Friday afternoon, then Saturday hits and you want to go places! You have errands to run, friends to see, places to visit, etc. Then Sunday comes and you stay around the house. Maybe you’re cleaning, finishing a house project, or doing laundry. Then as Sunday evening hits, you start to feel the sun setting on your weekend just as it was barely getting started!

This weekend was different. I did all of the things mentioned above, but then I had Monday to do nothing but spend time with my family. No work, no errands, no plans, just enjoying the company of my husband and daughter in our backyard and being thankful for every moment. It was glorious.

On normal two day weekends, there is plenty of family time, but it’s interspersed with work and obligations. There is something very special about having nothing on your schedule and seeing where the day takes you.

I’m going to try to harness that “nothingness” more often, even when I don’t have the extra day to do it. We all need a little more nothing in our lives so we can fill it with the somethings that really matter.

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There is a cliché in time management that goes something like this: During the week, we spend 8 hours working, 8 hours sleeping, and what happens to the other 8 hours is one of life’s great mysteries. If you feel like your evenings are slipping away, try these tips:

1. Make dinner easy

Dinner can take up an enormous amount of your evening time, and more importantly, energy. The eating is the enjoyable part. The cooking and the cleaning up is the energy drain. Cooking and preparing your dinners over the weekend can easily add an hour of time into your weekday evenings.

2. Analyze your “morning person” status

Are you a morning person or a night owl? Night owls have an easier time with evening productivity. If you’re a morning person, can you move any of your evening to-dos to the morning when you have more energy? Remember, everything you do is either a Meat (difficult), Vegetable (easy) or Dessert (fun.) Whenever possible, try to fit your Meats into the part of the day where you personally find it easier to focus. A morning person will have an easier time getting up 20 minutes earlier to finish something, than struggling to find the energy in the evening.

3. Add some structure

If it feels like you’re trying to be productive in the evening, but you have nothing to show for it, you may be frittering away your time trying to split your attention between multiple things. We’re distracted in the evening, “I want to relax! But I should pay some bills. But I’m going to do that while I watch TV. But I should really want some family time.” Stop multitasking. If you want to relax, then focus on relaxing! If you want to work, focus on working, and THEN relax.

4. Delay to the weekend

As you’re analyzing your evenings, do you really NEED to do the things you’re trying to do? Or are you better off delaying them to the weekend when you feel more re-charged. Doing something when you’re tired in the evening will take longer than when you’re energized on the weekend.

5. Ride the productivity wave for 30 more minutes

If a task simply can’t wait until the weekend, try doing it right when you get home from work. We tell ourselves that we just want to relax for a moment and then get back to work, but that’s difficult. Once we’ve removed ourselves from “work mode” it’s hard to get back. Instead, finish up a few quick tasks when you get home and THEN enjoy the relaxing feeling of being done for the day.

Remember, The Time Diet is all about balance and that means you can’t work all the time. Helping balance out your evenings is a great start to a healthy Time Diet!

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It’s teacher appreciation week. It’s also “National Watch Your Procrastination Finally Catch Up With You Week: (um…I mean finals week) for many college students out there. In honor of both of those occasions, I offer this blog to the teachers and students out there. Yes, teachers feel the end-of-semester crunch just like the students do.

1. Don’t check out. Not yet.

The end is so close, you can almost taste summer, but don’t let yourself lose focus yet. Time management is just as much about mental focus as it is about dates on a calendar. Keep yourself in “school mode” just a little bit longer.

2. Keep Calm

When everyone around you is stressed, it’s easy to get swept up in the frenzy and FIND things to stress about. Remember- half the stress of getting it all done comes from worrying about getting it all done. Keep calm, make a plan of attack, and methodically work through it.

3. Write yourself a note

If you let procrastination get the best of you this semester, capture the panic you feel right now in a letter to yourself for next year. In the beginning of the school year it’s easy to procrastinate because you quickly forget how awful the end of the semester was. Write down specific things you want to do next semester to make it better while the experience is fresh in your mind.

For example, here is mine: (I teach a few college classes. Didn’t I say teachers can be procrastinators too?)

Dear Emily,

Remember how annoyed you were at the end of last semester? You saved all that grading until the last minute. Sure, you had a ton of students, and a ton of final projects, but you knew that going in and could have planned accordingly. The online grade book will probably go down, and students will have questions about their grades. Remember? Remember how that always happens? Next semester, take care of all grades in your inbox before finals week, so you’ll only be dealing with final projects, instead of a smattering of work from the whole semester also.

Sincerely, Emily

P.S. Step 4-

Read The Time Diet: Time Management for College Survival before next semester. It’ll change your (academic) life! Available in print and e-book on Amazon.com

Time Management Book for Students

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