Category: Work Habits

How many times have you heard someone something along the lines of ‘spend as much time with your kids as possible while they’re little because you can never get that time back’. I find that phrase quite annoying because for me, there is more to life than raising little people and when someone says that it makes me question (and potentially feel guilty about) the other things I’m spending my precious time on. For others, it’s a great reminder about priorities. Whichever way you look at it, it’s truth. Time goes fast. There are no refunds.

My Ten Time Management Philosophies

1. Whatever you choose to spend your time on is worth it.
2. To do lists (or tasks lists) are as essential to work-life as breathing is to life-life.
3. You can usually achieve more in less hours than what you are currently doing (ie, working 5 days rather than 6).
4. Dividing your day up into blocks will help you accomplish more.
5. The pressure of deadlines and time limits is something to learn to love because you know how effective it can be in getting shit done.
6. Perfectionism has no place in a well-managed timetable (‘good enough’ is my mantra these days).
7. Everyone has ‘time suckers’ (tasks that you’re not great at, which take more time than they should, or things which distract you from getting shit done). They usually relate to our personalities and skill sets. Work out what they are and eliminate them.
8. Down time should be down time. Everyone needs actual rest. No matter how much of an active, workaholic you might think you are. And this becomes more important the more you jam into your days/weeks/years.
9. Time management is a constant work in progress. Because life happens and it happens fast. But once you have the tools, it’s just a matter of using them each time something changes!
10. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I don’t know who Jack is, but I can relate to him a lot. Not just dull, but stressed. Fun time needs to be part of your overall plan.

Effective time management starts with planning and analysis. Some really great starting points are doing things like:

•  Working out how many hours of free time you have each week
• Mocking up a timetable of your ideal week, including all the hours from waking up to going to bed.
• Setting clear goals (it’s fascinating to me how connected time management and goal setting is. I have found that the more attention I
  give one, the more attention I have to give the other, and vice versa.)

You might want to grab a copy of my article “6 time management tips that will give you more time to work on your business instead of in it.” – it’s a free download via my Shop.

K.

It seems to me that there is an obsession in the world these days with being busy and successful and accomplishing lots of things. And that there’s some kind of rite of passage for entrepreneurs to have spent a period of their lives working 80 hours a week and had years go by without a single holiday and other such dangerous habits, in order to achieve financial goals or a certain level of fame and popularity.

(Personally, I can think of nothing worse than spending all my time focusing on work and nothing else. Life is multi-faceted and rich with choices and no matter how much I love my job, I have other stuff I want to do too, and limited time in which to do it! Also there is a lot to be said for being the tortoise, not the hare.) Alongside this obsession with being busy is the commonly praised skill of multi-tasking.

I used to be so proud of the fact that I could do 5 things at once. Until I learnt some things about time management and productivity, and began to track my habits. Resulting in the realisation that I was doing it all wrong. I didn’t stop multi-tasking because I was bad at it. The opposite: I was a multi- tasking queen! I likened it to working as a chef (which I did for a while), but with slightly lower stakes. I could take a phone call from a potential client while editing and exporting photos, and while booking them in I could also reply to an SMS that came through. I could flick between designing marketing collateral, my CRM, emails, accounting software and back again, checking facebook multiple times with 10 apps open and 46 tabs in my browser. I mean, the more you can do, the more you get done, right?

So wrong. You can go on like that for days and never get through the important big jobs that take a few hours each. And not only that, but you probably made a bunch of mistakes that you weren’t aware of and you won’t remember half of what you did or where you got up to. If I catch myself accidentally multi-tasking these days, I also notice that my shoulders are tense, I’m clenching my jaw, I’m shallow breathing and I’m probably holding in a wee. Multi-tasking is like managing a piece of office equipment that photocopies, prints, binds, laminates, scans, emails and makes you coffee. It might do a pretty good job of some of the most basic tasks, but the high level ones will be average at best and it’s very likely to malfunction way more frequently than a simple machine that only does one or two things. Our brains aren’t supposed to work like that. Mistakes aside, you get tired more quickly. It’s harder than doing things one at a time. And despite the fact that life sometimes make you think it’s beneficial to do the ‘hard yards’, harder isn’t better! Harder is just harder.

Studies have actually shown that multi-tasking can interrupt your brain’s ability to create short-term memory. And I don’t need scientific evidence to know that it’s causing extra stress and anxiety because I can feel that in my own body—but just in case you don’t believe me, there have been studies done in that too! There have even been studies (https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014- 09/uos-bsr092314.php) that have linked the simultaneous use of multiple media devices to a decrease in brain density in the part of our brain that is responsible for cognitive and emotional control functions! So quit the multi-tasking, and quit glorifying the ability to do it as a desirable and important skill. Instead, spend your time learning how to prioritise and be more productive. Time-blocking, planning and organisational strategy are far more valuable skills.

The only multi-tasking I do these days is scrolling Facebook while enjoying a coffee, or cooking dinner while shouting at my teenager. And that’s quite enough thank you very much. If you currently have a multi-tasking habit and you quit it, you will find that you suddenly notice just how challenging multi-tasking is, and just how wonderful it is to give it all your attention to one thing at a time. Like before you had kids and you could go and do a number two without being interrupted. Bring back those days.

K.