“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Annie Dillard
Is how you spend your days in line with what matters to you? I know I often slip from that. It is so easy to allow a gap to widen between your big dreams and what you actually do each day.
It all comes down to how you use your time. Although long books are written about it, good time management involves just two steps: Deciding on the most important thing to do now… and doing it! The trouble is, it is sometimes easier said than done! So here are three ideas to help with the first part.
1. First realise, you do not have time to do everything. There is always so much more you might ideally do than you can actually accomplish. So you have to make choices. If you don’t, not only can you end up feeling overwhelmed and constantly behind, but important activities tend to get crowded out. How often have you never got round to something that really mattered because of trivial distractions? You never decided not to do it, it just got squeezed out by the other things. Rather than trying to do the same things faster, you can get bigger improvement by making better choices.
2. To avoid the ‘crowding out’ effect, remember you cannot do everything. Every decision about what you do is a choice between one thing and another. Choosing what to not to do is just as important as choosing what to do. You probably already have a ‘to do’ list. Why not start making a ‘not to do’ list for all the things you could do, but which are not worthwhile.
3. You can map possible tasks by how much effort they involve and how much effect they will have. In your business the effect might be measured in your annual profit. In your career, it might be your professional development. With your children, it might be having fun. If you like, you can score from 0-10 how big an effect an activity would produce and how much effort it would take.
Now you have a way to identify your most effective options and to spot what you tend to go for (not always the same thing!).
A big project like moving to new premises might have a large effect, but it also involves a lot of time and effort and you can lose a lot in the process. Switching materials supplier might be relatively easy but unless your current supplier is very bad, it will probably make only marginal difference. Asking a good customer if there is anything else you can do for them takes very little effort but could have a big effect.
As you go about your life over the next week, begin spotting where your activities lie.
What hard slogs do you do that take a lot of effort but do not have much effect? How much more time and energy would you have if you cut them out? And what could you do instead?
What fill ins do you do because they are easy rather than because they actually achieve anything? If you want to take a break or relax, how could you relax better in that time?
Do you take your easy wins? As long as you maintain a sense of direction, these are where you can get the biggest result for the least effort.
Do you tend to focus on big projects? Very good, but what are the easy wins you are missing along the way? Building for tomorrow is great, but you might be making things harder than they need to be.
If you are a manager, what do members of your team spend time doing? If you work for someone else and you have identified a ‘hard slog’ low-effect, high-effort task, why not tell your boss and suggest what you could do instead?
What low-effect activity could you decide not to do this week and what could you do in its place?
