Time Management

3 Ways to Find Balance in the Busy

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Time Management BalanceWe all strive to live a “balanced” life, but what does that really mean? Living a balanced life is more than just physically removing yourself from work once in a while.

Balance has just as much to do with your mental state as it does the hours in your schedule. If you’re thinking about work 24/7, it doesn’t really matter that you “allowed” yourself to go out to dinner with friends on a weeknight, or splurged on that 3-day weekend getaway. Try these three tips to allow yourself to mentally let go of your work on a regular basis.

1. Enjoy “Guilt-Free” Desserts

When you take a little time for yourself, do you feel guilty? An enjoyable Dessert task in your Time Diet is hardly enjoyable at all if you spend the whole time berating yourself for not being productive. Instead, broaden your definition of productivity to include doing things for yourself and recharging your batteries.

2. Ditch Your Connectivity

Just because you can take a moment to check your work email while out to dinner doesn’t mean you should. Allowing yourself to be constantly connected to work via your smartphone makes relaxing difficult.

3. Make Enjoyment a Priority

Do you only allow yourself to enjoy the “left over” time at the end of the day when you’re exhausted and worn out? Make Desserts a priority in your calendar just like everything else. It’s easy to work late and skip your favorite yoga class because there “isn’t enough time,” but remember, we make time for the things that are important to us.

Motivated and driven people are naturally going to worry about their job “off the clock” from time to time, but the more we can strive to compartmentalize that worry and turn it off once in a while, the better.

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In Defense of the Paper Calendar

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Time Management Paper CalendarGrocery store check-writers.
90 year old ladies who don’t use email.
That one person who isn’t on Facebook yet.

I have been compared to all of these people because of one simple fact: I carry a paper calendar in my purse everywhere I go. I use my smartphone to message my friends, purchase my lattes, tell me directions, and accept credit cards, but when it comes to my deadlines, I rely on good ‘ol fashioned paper and pen. When people discover this, they are shocked. “Emily,” they say. “You write a time management blog. Why on earth do you use a paper calendar?” Allow me to explain…

The short answer: It works for me.

As a time management speaker, my goal is not to tell you what I do and convince you it’s best. My goal is to help you find what works best for YOU and have the dedication to stick to that plan.

The long answer: I’ve chosen to stick with my paper calendar for three main reasons:

1. Flexibility

I like to be able to write some things big and some things small. Some things get stars, others don’t. Some repeated events just get a line through the whole week. My formatting options are limit-less.

2. Big Picture

Many of the phone calendar apps out there make it difficult to see your week at a glance due to the screen size. When I open my paper calendar, I can see all the week’s deadlines at once. It gives me a good “big picture” idea of what I have in store.

3. Retention

I find that I remember things more if I write them rather than type them. Perhaps it’s because I type pretty much everything else in my life and when I write something in pen, it stands out.

The biggest drawback:

Sharing. I’ve almost switched to a digital calendar many times because it is easier to share my schedule with others. To get around this, I keep a Google calendar with shared events that others need to see, and then transfer them to my paper version. Duplicated work? Yes. Inefficient? Possibly. But so far, the extra few seconds of transferring those deadlines has been worth it.

So, fellow paper fans, raise that pen high with pride! No longer should you be labeled a “technophobe” or “dinosaur.” You’re just doing what works for YOU and that is all that matters.

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Photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

3 Ways to Celebrate Success

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Time Management CelebrationsYOU are amazing and have accomplished incredible things. Have you stepped back and appreciated that recently?

Sometimes people are hesitant to celebrate success because it takes time, and they’re afraid they’ll become complacent with their accomplishments and lose the drive to keep moving forward. If we never lift our noses from the grindstone, we risk facing burnout, stress, and ultimately slowing our pace of productivity. Try these three steps to propel your motivation and energy forward while celebrating your past successes.

1. Write it down

Write down five things you’ve accomplished in the past year. They don’t have to be huge undertakings, just something that required some work and dedication. Treat yourself to a “Dessert” you enjoy, be it a hobby, a relaxing afternoon, or special meal. While you’re enjoying this Dessert, think of all the hard work that led you to that point and appreciate how good it feels to know you’ve accomplished something worthwhile. If these were team accomplishments, bring your coworkers in on the celebration!

2. Improve while still appreciating

Looking back at past successes is not only a chance to see how far you’ve come, but also see the opportunities for future improvement. Be careful not to brush off past accomplishments because they now seem small or trivial. Remember, those small, early successes are the foundation on which you continue to build.

3. Recognize success in others

We all know how difficult it is to take time to appreciate our work, so help others out with that process. Take a moment to tell your friend, colleague, or family member what a great job he or she did on a recent task. This doesn’t have to be a formal hand-written note. It could be as simple as stopping someone in the hallway and giving heartfelt recognition of a job well done. Appreciating success in others will also help you appreciate success in yourself.

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How To Stop Wasting Your Time In Meetings

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time management meeting“Oh, what a productive meeting! I was 100% enthralled with all 60 minutes of that conference room gathering” …said no one ever. Most people seem to agree that meetings can be a huge drain on our productivity, and yet they continue to plague our workday. Try these tips to turn your meetings from obligatory time fillers to shining examples of efficiency.

If You’re The Meeting Planner…

Schedule shorter meetings. Having a written agenda, keeping people on topic, and avoiding lengthy rambling icebreakers can all help make a meeting shorter, but if you’ve scheduled an hour for only 10 minutes of information, you’ll find a way to fill that extra time. If your meetings are usually an hour, try scheduling one for 30 minutes. If they are usually 30 minutes, try 15. Restricting your available time forces people to be brief and also respects everyone’s schedule.

If You’re a Meeting Attendee

It’s easy to recognize when other meeting attendees are wasting everyone’s time by veering off track and speaking just for the sake of speaking, but sometimes it’s hard to recognize when we’ve become that person! Before you interject, ask yourself: “Is this related to the agenda? Is it a question that will pertain to anyone else in the room?” If the answer is “No,” save it for another time.

Notice one of the self-questions isn’t “Is this important?” Just because something is important doesn’t mean it belongs in the meeting. That’s the purpose of an agenda – to determine which important things will be discussed right now.

Meetings don’t have to be a waste of time. Just keep your collaborations on track and to the point and everyone will leave happy.

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My Journey Into Gray

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Time management careerThey say that in order to get high blog traffic, your best bet is to make your blogs short with a catchy title. And don’t write about yourself too much because then the readers won’t be able to see themselves in your words. This blog breaks all those rules. I apologize. I hope you’ll read it anyway and share it with your friends because I believe this message is vital to living the life you want to lead and I wish someone had shared it with me earlier.

Black and White

When deciding how to spend our time, it’s easy to look for the black and white options. I will either pursue this career or that career, this path or that path, this choice or that choice…as though life were always that dichotomous. Sure, our time is limited and we can’t do everything, but our opportunities aren’t as cut-and-dry as we’d like them to be. If we’ve chosen to accept black and reject white, we might miss out on all the potential gray has to offer. Adopting the “gray philosophy” has changed my life and opportunities dramatically and I know it can for you too.

My Journey Into the Gray

I spent the first several years of my professional life with black and white tunnel vision. I have a degree in education, so I became a full time teacher in a public school district with a good reputation. Then I decided to get an advanced degree in education with the hope of teaching college at a small school in a small town and then move up to a large school in a large town. That’s the well-trodden path that others have forged for me. If you do A, B, and C then X, Y, and Z will happen.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that path, but I realized I was on a straight freeway when I was really looking for a curvy backroad – the kind that might lead to a dead-end, or right back to where you started, but could also lead to an amazing scenic overlook you never expected. That’s when I decided to start my own consulting business.

I did not jump in with two feet with the “sink or swim” mentality that some entrepreneurs recommend. I put my toe in the water with a blog and a few workshops here and there while continuing to teach full time. As my business grew and I quit my teaching job to pursue my doctorate, I felt pressured to keep my worlds separate. “Nobody outside of teaching cares about my teaching background,” I thought, “and nobody in education will understand the opportunities I’m trying to explore outside the classroom walls.”

I thought I was on two very separate paths but I’m now starting to see that they aren’t separate at all; I’m just forging my own in the middle.

New Possibilities

Since leaving the classroom, I have continued to grow my consulting business with both students and adults. I use my expertise in education to coach college students on time management and speak to high school and college audiences about how to succeed. I became a consultant with a bank delivering financial literacy seminars to student and adult audiences. I also travel around the country delivering professional development workshops for a non-profit that offers adaptive assessment software to school districts. And I teach music as an adjunct professor at Arizona State University. And I sell my three books on Amazon.com as I’m writing my fourth.

Where in the world is the manual for that career path? Where is the black and white? What do I tell people when they ask, “What do you do?”

I have no idea where this “path” will lead, but I do know that if I had continued to view my life as a series of black and white options, if I had continued to believe that teaching in the K-12 classroom was the only thing I could do with a degree in education, I would have been blind to so many exciting opportunities.

Expand Your Own Tunnel Vision

Your career path probably isn’t as narrow as you think it is. Don’t let your focus on one path blind you to possible detours and side streets that could lead to slightly different and new possibilities. Just because it isn’t “typically” done doesn’t mean it can’t be. Don’t be afraid to waste your time on an activity or opportunity that doesn’t fit the mold. Be creative. Be open to new things. Most importantly, find what you love doing and then find a way to get paid for it, even if it means taking the road less traveled or forging your own path. (See how I waited until the end for the trite Robert Frost poem reference? Go ahead and admire my restraint.)

Thanks for making it all the way to the end! I’d love to hear your comments. Either comment below or email me at Emily@TheTimeDiet.org. Thanks friends! Now go enjoy your week and feel free to tip-toe off the path and see where it takes you.

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Photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Are You Losing Time After Your Vacation?

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Time Management VacationSummer vacations are wonderful! Coming home from summer vacations? Well, that’s a different story. After a relaxing week of fun, coming back to the harsh realities of work can seem daunting, stressful, and a bit overwhelming. Try these tips for a seamless transition back to real life so you can maintain your feeling of relaxation instead of drowning in “vacation recovery” upon your return.

1. Tidy Up Before You Leave

Nothing screams “back to work!” quite like a messy home and office. Before you leave for your marvelous trip, take a moment to organize your work and living space so it’s ready for your return. As you’re throwing things into a suitcase, cleaning is the last thing on your mind, but that pile of unsorted mail, heap of dirty laundry, and stack of clutter on your desk makes it difficult to ease back into a productive mindset.  Make tidying up part of your pre-vacation planning.

2. Minimize Jet-Lag

If your vacation took you across several time zones, you might lose several days to the groggy effects of jet lag when you return home. While some of those effects may be inevitable, minimize them by getting back to your home time zone as quickly as possible. Get in bed when the local time says you should, and find as much light as you can in the morning to help wake you up and get you back on track.

3. Un-Pack Right Away

You may not want your vacation to come to an end, but it’s difficult to return to business-as-usual when your suitcase takes up permanent residence in the middle of your room. Even though you’re worn out, unpack right away to get back to your normal routine as quickly as possible.

Vacations are an enjoyable “Dessert” in your Time Diet. Don’t let the post-vacation slump stop you from taking them in the first place!

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Are You Wasting People’s Time By Mistake?

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Time Management KarmaWe’re always looking for ways to do things faster, be more organized, and focus on our work while tuning out distractions. Have you thought about whether or not you’re helping other people achieve those goals too? It’s  a good idea to follow the golden rule of time management: treat other people’s time the way you’d like your time to be treated. Are you wasting people’s time unintentionally? Use these four tips to create good “time management karma.”

1. Google it

Do your homework before asking a question/favor. If the internet can easily answer it for you, try that first! Then, if you still can’t find the answer or need more information, you can at least come to the table with some background research. People are far more willing to help when you’ve already tried to find the answer on your own. (If you’ve never played with the site “Let Me Google That For You“, feel free to do so now)

2. Follow through when you delegate

If you delegate a task to someone, follow up and thank the person for his or her time. Too often, I see people delegate, and then just do it themselves without letting the other person know. Or, the task is  busy work and not truly necessary. Be respectful of other people’s time and only ask for things when needed.

3. Be realistic with promises

It’s hard to tell people “no,” especially when you really want to help and don’t want to let them down, but this only worsens the problem. If you do not have the time to help, say so now, while the person still has time to seek help elsewhere, rather than committing to a promise you can’t keep.

4. If you are late, apologize

Life happens. Even with the best of planning, you’re still bound to be late to a meeting once in a while and keep someone waiting. The best thing to do in this situation is to sincerely apologize and then take steps to not let it happen again. People just want an acknowledgement that their time is important to you. Say something like, “I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting, I didn’t mean to keep you from other things you have to do today. The whole freeway was closed due to an accident. Let’s get on with business shall we?”

Emergencies and unexpected deadlines come up, but if you take steps to be considerate with other people’s time, you’ll find that they are also considerate of yours.

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Photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

Why Urgent Is Easy But Planning Is Hard

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Time Management UrgentWhen you stare at your to-do list, you subconsciously look for three things:

Tasks that are easy
Tasks that are urgent and
Tasks that are important.

When only one task stands out as fitting all of those categories, deciding what to do first is a no-brainer. On the other hand, when everything feels urgent, we have a stressful problem I like to call “Priority Paralysis,” but what about when nothing feels urgent? Here are three reasons an urgent-free to-do list can be a problem and what to do about it!

1. We don’t know what to do first

Urgent vs non-urgent tasks make prioritizing easy, but if “urgent” is the only thing you look for when deciding which task to tackle, what happens when nothing presents an urgent deadline? You don’t know what to do first! This is why The Time Diet is based on categorizing. Pick a Meat task (difficult) Vegetable task (easy) and Dessert task (fun) to focus on during your day. That gives you some parameters to help structure your schedule in a way that ensures you’ll get ahead on your non-urgent tasks while maintaining balance in your day.

2. We’re likely to procrastinate

Another problem with an urgent-free to-do list is that we’re tempted to do nothing! It’s easy to procrastinate when none of our deadlines are urgent at the moment. Remember, if you only deal with tasks when they are urgent, that ensures that you’ll always be faced with a last minute stressful time crunch. Try scheduling “start dates” in your calendar for each “due date.” It’s easy to say we’ll begin something later, but a start date defines exactly when “later” is.

3. We waste time

When we aren’t up against the pressure of an urgent deadline, it’s easy to allow Time Killers to distract us. When people thrive on the pressure of a deadline, it’s often because there is  less time to be distracted and it forces them to focus and work more efficiently. This concept is called Parkinson’s Law, which says that work expands to fill the time we give it. Try removing Time Killers (smartphone, Facebook, etc…) even while you complete non-urgent work so you finish faster.

A non-urgent to-do list is definitely something to celebrate, but not ignore. You’ll never eliminate last-minute time crunch crises, but by efficiently organizing your non-urgent tasks, you’ll be able to decrease the amount of time spent up against a deadline.

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Have you bought your child/niece/nephew/neighbor a graduation present yet? Give them the gift of a better schedule. Get The Time Diet: Time Management for College Survival on Amazon today for $11.99.

Time Management Book for Students

Time Management Book for Students

5 Things To Do In 30 Minutes Per Day

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Time Management 30 MinutesIf you absolutely needed to, could you find an extra 30 minutes in your day? That extra half an hour might not seem like much, but if you make the time each day, it can add up to a lot over time! It might mean getting up a little earlier, finding more focus in your day, or cutting down on your social media/internet surfing time. However you find it, here are 5 things you can do in those 30 extra minutes that produce big results.

1. Get in Shape

I know, I know. We never have enough time to exercise. Why not use those 30 minutes to work out at home? You’ll save time by not driving to and from the gym. Try this 30-minute at home workout, or one of the many others available online.

2. Learn a Skill

Have you always wanted to learn to play the piano? Or be more proficient at Excel or Photoshop? Why not learn? “How-to” information has never been more readily available. Either buy a book and slowly work your way through it, or use an online course website such as Udemy to learn things you never thought you’d have time for.

3. Follow Up

It’s easy to get lost in the quagmire of a full inbox and forget to reach out to contacts we’ve met recently. Why not use those 30 minutes to follow up with new people and keep in touch with old friends or clients. Staying in touch is the only way to maximize your ever-growing network.

4. Accomplish a “Some Day” Task

Have you always wanted to write a book? Organize your garage? Re-finish that furniture? Huge tasks like this seem daunting, so we continue to put them off until “some day.” In reality, “some day” doesn’t have to be one 24-hour time period. Use your 30 minutes a day to tackle one tiny piece of that task at a time. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’re finished!

5. Clean

Who in the world has time to devote a whole day to housecleaning? Use your new-found 30 minutes to tackle a few tasks each day. Perhaps one day you clean the bathrooms, another day you vacuum, another day deal with clutter, etc… It’s much easier to stay on top of cleaning when you set aside tiny bits of time for it in your schedule than when you wait for it to get overwhelming.

Where will YOU find your 30 minutes a day and what will you do with it?

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The Real Reason You Weren’t Productive Today

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time management frustrationWe’ve all looked at a lengthy to-do list and wondered, “What in the world should I do first?” Sometimes, however, we know what we should do first, we just don’t want to do it because it’s difficult, time consuming, or worst of all…we’re scared.

When we’re scared to do something, we never actually admit it to ourselves. Instead, we come up with wild excuses to put it off. Try these three steps to conquer your fears, boost your productivity, and finally do those tasks you know need to happen to reach your goals.

1. Tell Someone You’re Scared

It’s easier to make up an excuse for procrastinating rather than admit that we’re afraid to fail, or doubt our own abilities. Verbalizing those fears to others can help us see how unfounded they truly are. Hearing it said out loud helps us admit that we’re putting something off because of fear, not because of the other excuses we’ve imagined. Plus, if you tell a close friend or family member, he or she can remind you why you do have the skills to accomplish what you need to and that the only thing holding you back is…you.

2. Pinpoint What You’re Scared Of

Once you realize it’s fear that’s holding you back, try to pinpoint exactly what it is you’re scare of. Are you scared of being told “no?” Are you scared of losing money? Embarrassing yourself? Wasting your time? Pinpointing your fear can help you address it more directly.

3. Determine What the Reward Could Be

Once this scary task is completed, what will you gain? A new job? More clients? A sense of accomplishment? More money? Pride? Happiness? Defining the reward gives you motivation and helps you realize how “silly” the fear is compared to the reward it could produce. For example, are you really willing to give up a chance at a better career because you’re afraid of being told “no?” Are you really willing to give up on a great opportunity because you’re afraid to pick up that phone, or send that email, or start that project?

This week, I challenge you to make time for at least one thing that scares you. What will you accomplish by casting fear aside and tackling those important tasks that will propel you forward?

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