I am glued to my cell phone, but I don’t nearly maximize its potential when it comes to helping me with time management. This week, I remembered why.

My System

My paper calendar and to-do list are the staples of my time management system. My husband relies heavily on iPhone reminders. When I have something to remember, I’ll pull out my calendar and write it down. He just pulls out his phone and says, “Siri, remind me to go to FedEX at 2pm tomorrow.”

I’ll admit, I’m a little jealous of the ease of his system. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and it feels much more “2015” than my pen and paper. So this week I tried utilizing reminders more than I usually do…

…and I hated it. I have trained myself to look at my calendar when I need to know my schedule. But when I put something in my phone as a reminder, that means I didn’t have it in my calendar. When I looked at my calendar during the day, I didn’t see all of my information there and the reminders caught me off guard later.

Do What Works!

Moral of the story: use the time management system that works best for YOU, not somebody else. You can be open to new ideas as they come along. You may discover a more efficient modification to your system! But if you give something a try and your old system worked better, stick to it.

Remember what your mother said: if everyone else decided to jump off a cliff, would you do it too?

Connect with The Time Diet for more time management tips

I’m usually pretty good at keeping my to-do list. I review my tasks, I plan ahead, I methodically check things off, but this week I realized I might need another list in my life.

My College Flashback

I’ve spent a lot of time on college campuses this week. (Btw, Nothing will make you feel super old quite like hanging out on a college campus. They ride tiny, florescent skateboards now? Really? Is that a thing?) But anyway, looking around made me think. I saw all these groups of friends hanging out, chatting, laughing, studying in the quad, you know, the scenes college brochures are made of.

I miss that. I miss having all of my friends right there, all the time. Being social didn’t require much work. Want to grab dinner with someone? Great! I’ll probably run into them after class, or in the hallway, or at some club meeting. Social relationships were in close proximity.

Relationships Now

Now it’s different. Now there is work, and obligations, and many of your close friends live in different cities. The ones that live in your city, might be far away. For example, there could be a difference of 45 miles between friends living “in the Phoenix area.” Finding time to be social takes work.

Your To Do List for People

I stumbled across this blog about Time Management worries  from a cancer survivor. She writes about having two different to-do lists: one for things and one for people. I love this idea.

We get so caught up in tasks, that it’s easy to let your social relationship fade into the background. I vow to be better at maintaining my “relationship to-do list.” It’s not easy, but I don’t think most good things are.

Connect with The Time Diet for more time management tips

We get so caught up in tasks, that it’s easy to let your social relationship fade into the background. I vow to be better at maintaining my “relationship to-do list.” It’s not easy, but I don’t think most good things are.