As I mentioned in my previous posting, we work long hours, give away one or two days on the weekends, and still most of us have a pile of things undone. No, it’s not about time management anymore. It’s about life management. But, how do we do that?
Getting people to pause and sit down to reflect on what’s going on in their life is extremely difficult. It’s not just a once-a-year thing. It’s not even a once-a-month thing. It’s a daily thing.
Perhaps one of the most powerful techniques I’ve found to try to manage a very busy life is to take 10 to 20 minutes each evening to wrap up today and fine tune tomorrow’s to-do list. It’s quiet time. It’s time to ask, “What can I learn from what happened today?” It’s time to search for something good to say about today (even if it’s, “It’s over – and I get a chance to try again tomorrow!). Finally, it’s time to focus on what’s truly important for me to work on / accomplish tomorrow.
One secret is to be realistic about your work environment when deciding what you need to accomplish. You need to recognize that there are two invisible parts to your work day - invisible in the sense that they never make onto a “to-do” list. First, there’s the time consumed each day dealing with reactive demands (interruptions, crises, shifting priories, etc.), and, second, the time you’ll spend on your “routine” tasks (e.g. processing email, voice mail, and paper mail). You ignore these at your peril. They consume your time every day.
You’ll sleep much better if you have a realistic plan to work on / accomplish your top priorities. You’ll wake up in the morning with a purpose. In effect, you’ve created a “contract” with yourself for the upcoming day with your “measures of success”. Since you’re human, you’ll never be perfect all of the time, but you want to get better at this “planning for success” technique. This is one of those times when near-perfection is OK.
In this way, you can take charge of your life, control the tyranny of expectations, and become a little less reactive to the circumstances around you.
