Many people think that they don’t have enough time, but if you look at it, we all have the same amount of time—24 hours in a given day.  If you don’t have enough time, then maybe you are not managing the time you do have. The question is: What are you doing with it?  The most satisfying days are those when you feel productive, that you have worked towards a worthy goal and made some progress. In some families, that may mean you had dinner together, which could have been take-out—and although you won’t be able to clean-up until tomorrow, the family is happy and no one is stressed out—success!  You have to pick your battles.

The first rule in time management is to say no.

That’s hard for a lot of people who want to look like a team player, but it is a necessary discipline.  Do not commit to anything before you sit down and look at your calendar. If you cannot commit on a calendar (and you MUST write this in) to the particular engagement, then do NOT say yes.  This will also mean that you cannot even respond to the request until you sit down with your calendar.  Again, people pleasers—tell your petitioner that you will get back to them AFTER you have looked at your calendar.  This may take an hour, a day or a week.  Be firm with them and give yourself the grace of a moment to breathe and assess, even if that takes a couple of days.

There are many ways to manage time, and all of them are good IF you use them.

My tech person uses one project management program, and my favorite organizer uses another, but I’ll give you something simple that is easily implemented: the concept of rocks in the jar.  This concept is that you put the biggest rocks in the jar first, followed by the smaller ones and then followed by the pebbles. The biggest rocks are your most important goals; everything else after that is a bonus.  I try to limit this to three goals a day.  You want to get your biggest goals done in a day, otherwise you may feel cheated and feel as though the day was wasted.    That would be like someone giving you 100 bucks and you blow it on candy and potato chips.  Each day is a gift of time, to not fritter it away because of poor planning.

Time management expert Harold Taylor says, “The more time you spend on the higher priorities, the more successful you will be.”

Here are a few time management tips to help you set those priorities:

  • Set reasonable daily goals
  • Set daily goals the night before, limit to three
  • If part of a larger project, limit goal to a piece of the whole
  • If goal is incomplete, move to next day
  • If goal is incomplete by week’s end, remove goal

Time management is a huge issue and has many aspects.  We have covered only a couple here.  All suggestions are a prompt for you to think about the issues and may lead you to different ideas or tools.  It’s all good if it moves you toward your goals.  Happy organizing!