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!

You read the blog, now get the book! The Time Diet: Digestible Time Management On sale on Amazon.com in paperback and e-book

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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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We wear many different hats during the day and keeping track of it all can be insane. Give your brain computer a backup drive by doing these three things.

1. Make it a routine

Routines are an essential part of any time management plan because when something is routine you don’t have to think about it. Even if life and work throws huge curve balls at you, keeping at least some small part the same each day helps you feel more in control. If at all possible, try to make these routines in the morning. Get up at the same time. Exercise, eat breakfast, whatever it is you do in the morning, make it a habit. When you start the day in control it’s easier to keep that feeling of control longer.

2. Do small pieces of a large task every day

I have an author friend who says she writes 5 pages a day no matter what. Writing a book is a huge task. But 5 pages a day? That’s not too bad. Stop thinking about your huge task, and break it up into smaller bits. Worrying and procrastinating take up a lot of brain hard drive space you could use for other things.

3. Use external cues and reminders

Some people don’t write things down because they’ll “just remember.” Everybody remembers until they forget! Even if you could somehow remember everything you need to do, that processing power is far better used on other things. Don’t waste memory space on reminders. Set an alarm. Write it in your calendar. Leave a note on a white board. Wherever you choose to keep track of deadlines and to-dos, make sure it’s in one location. If you have to use mental capacity remembering WHERE you wrote your reminder, it defeats the purpose of using reminders.

We can’t trade our brain computer in for a bigger more powerful model, so we need to work hard with our time management skills to keep the one we have in good shape.

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The coveted RSVP…When we’re the event organizer, we can’t believe people won’t take 5 seconds to give us an answer. When we’re the event attendee we let that invitation sit on our counter for weeks until we have “time” to think about it. I am a huge fan of taking care of small tasks right away, but I’m a pretty bad example of the prompt RSVP. Here are four ways we can help improve the way we respond to events.

 1. Use Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s law says that work expands to fill the time that we give it. When you, the event organizer, give us 3 weeks to give you an answer, that’s how long it’s going to take. We let that small task expand to fill the time available. If you’re organizing a social event like a wedding, or birthday party, give us plenty of notice, but a smaller window to respond.

 2. Use the 5-Minute Rule

When you receive that event invitation, apply the 5 minute rule: if it takes less than 5 minutes, do it now. You’re never going to feel any more like finding a stamp and mailing in that piece of paper than you do right now, so you might as well just get it over with.

 3. Define What You’re Waiting For

Maybe you can’t RSVP right now because you’re waiting on something. Perhaps you need to check with your spouse, or check your work schedule. In that case, add that quick task to your calendar so you define when it will happen rather than allow it to be relegated to the infinite “later.” If, for example, you’re waiting on your work schedule, let the organizer know that so they aren’t left to just wonder about you. “Put me down as a Yes, but I’ll need to confirm on ____ when I find out for sure that I’ll be in town.”

4. Remember the Other Perspective

If you’re tempted to let that RSVP slide, consider the other perspective. Consider how frustrating it is to put off grocery shopping for a big event because you have no clue how much food to buy. Consider how frustrating it is to think your friends aren’t responding because they’re holding out for a better offer. As an organizer, make sure you remember your friends, just like you, have busy lives and things slip so don’t take it personally. Your party is great, but it’s not the most important thing on their minds right now.

Finally, if I have ever been late RSVPing to your baby shower/wedding/party/Bar Mitzvah, etc… I’m sorry. I offer this blog as my apology.

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Check out How to Speak so People Will Buy and other publications by Emily Schwartz

 Photo Credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Ah…. Monday. We dread it over the weekend, but when it arrives it can be a huge time management asset. We are recharged from two days off, and haven’t become frustrated by a busy week quite yet. Here are three ways to make the most of your Mondays.

1. Do your most important thing

What are your highest priorities for the week? Try scheduling them on Mondays. Early in the week, you have less chance of a last minute task derailing your plan and you can capitalize on what little focus you have before mid-week burnout sets in.

2. Don’t schedule meetings

Monday meetings sound like a good idea to make sure everyone is on the same page before beginning the work week, but they eat up valuable focus time you can be using elsewhere. Try using Mondays for your priorities and schedule your planning meetings later in the week.

3. Get up early

It may be difficult to drag yourself out of bed on a Monday, but you’ll feel even less like getting up early after a few exhausting days of work. Take advantage of your two prior days of relaxation and set your alarm clock earlier to maximize your Monday productivity. Get the week started off on the right foot.

All three of these tips assume that you’ve taken at least a little time over your weekend to enjoy yourself and unwind. Make sure you enjoy a few “desserts” on your off days to keep you Time Diet balanced!

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More books by Emily Schwartz: How To Speak So People Will Buy

Time management is hard enough when it’s just us. Throw a kid or two into the mix? Your schedule just got a whole lot harder! Many of you know we had our first child this year. Here’s what we’ve learned about time management in the past 9 months.

1. Start the day ready

My husband and I both work full time, and we would both be in a perpetual state of “trying to get to work” if we didn’t do EVERYTHING the night before. Bottles made, lunches made, clothes picked out, computer packed up, etc…I hate doing this the night before, but when I wake up and don’t have to worry about it, my stress level instantly decreases. It sets the tone for the rest of the day.

2. Understand when it’s OK to be flexible

I hate being late. I love having a plan. When we had our daughter, I had to quickly realize that plans are great but not EVERY plan is a life or death situation if it doesn’t happen perfectly. Whenever I sense that a plan is about to derail, I think, “Am I mad about what’s happening right now? Or am I just mad that my plan didn’t work.”

3. Allow more time

After a few months of being upset that “unexpected” things kept making us late, I realized I needed to start expecting the unexpected. A sudden screaming fest, or outfit change isn’t a surprise anymore. Instead, it’s a welcomed surprise when it doesn’t happen and I have a few extra minutes of breathing room. It’s all about adjusting expectations.

4. Change your mindset

Finally, “busy” and “rushing” are a mindset. I don’t want my daughter to think we just rush around all the time. I want her to know that you can get a lot done and still smile about it and stay calm.

Now, lest you think my home is always perfectly organized, we’re always on time, and we never get upset…let me assure you that is NOT the case. However, I’ve found that the days we’re able to achieve the four things listed above are FAR more organized than the days we let them slide.

Check out other publications by Emily Schwartz The Time Diet: Time Management for College Survival on Amazon.com

Time Management Book for Students

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Rough day? Busy season? Rewarding ourselves for a job well done is a great habit, but I’ve found that the WAY we choose to reward ourselves can say a lot about our time management. Here’s why…

Things and Experiences

We often reward ourselves with tangible things. We’ll earn a raise, and buy ourselves a new watch. We’ll have a stressful day and pick out a new outfit. There is nothing wrong with this, but rewarding yourself with an experience can be even more meaningful. Be it a weekend getaway, a fancy night out to dinner, or even a movie night in at home, experiences are memorable and enrich our lives.

No Time!

Perhaps you’ve caught yourself passing on an experience because “I don’t have time”….THAT is precisely the problem!

I enjoy fancy things as much as the next person, but I think it’s easier for busy people to buy things for themselves instead of experiences, because things don’t require time out of our day.

I challenge you to make the time for experiences. It’s the best reward you can give yourself. Not only is it a reward for a job well done, but it’s a break from the work you put so much time into.

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