What a great blog post I ran across last week. The author, Carey Nieuwof, makes a great point about why a lot of us (and I am definitely in this category) struggle mightily with time management.
Reasons time management will not help you too much
- You are managing a fixed asset...24 hours in a day, that's it!
- Time management will make you more efficient, but you’ll hit a wall in effectiveness
- It's not just the hours, it's the weight...we are making big decisions and the time and energy it takes to make any one of those decisions is difficult to place neatly in a time management chart.
Practice Energy Management
- Realize that you only have 3-5 deeply productive hours in a day. I know people that run from meeting to meeting every day for 10 hours. This proves they are busy, but does not prove that they are being effective. It is not a badge of honor to have the fullest calendar in the office.
- Leverage those hours like they were your lifeline (because they are). Stop and think about your daily rhythms of work. When are you most effective? When are you least effective? When do you get the most done? I know for me, early in the morning and late at night is when I can get my "innovation" time in. This is when I work on the strategy for projects I am doing that require me to think deeply. Figure out when your 3-5 productive hours are and use them wisely.
- Don't compete with your energy levels, cooperate with them. Sometimes it is better to recognize that you do not have the energy or mindset to tackle a big task at that exact moment. Do some menial tasks, go for a walk, meditate, just do something that you think will shift your mindset and energy levels so you can come back to the task recharged.
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