Hey, y’all! I’ve been meaning to write this post since Super Bowl Sunday, which is incredibly ironic considering the topic. So without further ado, pull up a chair and let’s talk time management.
We all have time on our hands
In fact, the argument can be made that we have nothing but time. We trade our time for skills, money, relationships, fulfillment, etc. Time is our only real resource and it’s also completely non-refundable. We can’t get back the time we’ve used. Which is what makes time management crucial. We spend (or try to) our time in the most efficient manner to gives ourselves happiness. Unfortunately, there are plenty of times where we don’t succeed or, in some cases, even attempt.
I’ve found that I feel the best about life on days when I truly put my time to use. Basically, on days where I allocate my time with purpose, rather than letting it slip away mindlessly. Unless that’s what the time has been set aside for. Considering how easy it is to get lost in the whirlpool of screens, TV, and social media (Instagram is my poison of choice) it’s more important than ever to make sure we use our time purposefully. Let’s talk about how.
My favorite is journaling
I use my journal to air my thoughts and feelings about life. There’s something cathartic about just writing everything down in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. I wrote about journaling, so I won’t delve too much into that part. But I also use my journal as a way to orient myself for my day. At the top of each entry, I write down nine goals. I always have three research goals and three personal goals. The last three are dedicated to professional things during the workweek and miscellaneous tasks when I’m off. I find this helps keep me focused on the main things that I want to accomplish during the day. I tend to journal in the morning to help me orient myself.
At the bottom of each entry, I write “today is going to be a good day” and which aspect of myself I want to work on that day. The former is a reminder. Anything can happen to us: injuries, promotions, etc. But we get to decide if our day was good. So starting off deciding that the day is going to be good just sets everything up in a positive light.
The latter is helps to keep myself grounded in the knowledge that I’m not perfect. There’s always something we can do better as people. We can always be kinder, more empathetic, more understanding, more curious, etc. And so I pick something to try and get better at each day. Someone tells me something I already know? No reason to get mad, they just want to make sure I know. Someone forgets something I told them? We’re human and we forget things. It just helps me remember that we can always improve.
Next up is meditation
I’ve written about meditation before as well, but I feel like that as a time management tool it cannot be overlooked. Meditation is simply training awareness. It makes it easier to focus on what you want and ignore what you don’t. And when it comes to setting apart time and then actually utilizing it, awareness and focus are important. Meditation can give us the ability to determine what we want and need to allot our time towards based on us, not what other people think. And then once we sit down to use our time, the focus we gained lets us make sure that time doesn’t go to waste.
Many of us feel like we don’t have enough time in the day. But if we look at how we use our time, we’ll see that we squander a shit ton of it. Which segues into the next point.
Blocking out our time
We have to set aside time for the things that are important for us. For example, I do my journaling and meditation in the same place and at the same time each day. I treat it like an appointment; I’m not missing it unless something wild happens. That might sound extreme but think about it. Time is our only and most valuable resource. If we know allocating it towards a practice or task is important, why shouldn’t we give it the same gravity as we would a meeting or other crucial event?
On top of that, repeatedly doing a task in the same place and at the same time makes a mental association with that activity. Like, if I laid in the garden every day at noon, eventually my brain would either be like “oh it’s noon, time to roll around in the garden” or “oh it’s the garden, the place I sit in”. That’s how habits are formed. And somewhere upwards of forty percent of human behavior is habit. So we need to set some time aside for our tasks, give it the importance it deserves, and then…
Just start
This is sometimes the hardest part. It’s very easy to want to wait until everything is perfect or until we have the motivation to do something. But if we wait until all conditions are optimal, we might never begin. So sometimes we just have to say “fuck it” and take the first step. In fact, that’s what happened to me this week with the blog. I didn’t allow myself the right amount of time on Super Bowl Sunday, and then the next few weeks I either didn’t give myself the time or couldn’t find the motivation to write. But today, I sat looked at the tab for the blog on my browser and thought “I’m just going to start writing”. And here we are.
It’s especially important when dealing with motivation. Sometimes, we look for inspiration or motivation in order to start doing a task. But oftentimes, action provides motivation and inspiration. Mark Manson often speaks about how sometimes we just have to do something. I wasn’t feeling motivated or inspired when I began writing today. Hell, I didn’t even know how to start this post. But as I started writing, the words just flowed. And sometimes that’s what we need. We just need to start.
But we also need to take breaks
We can’t run at breakneck speed all of the time. If you drive a car without performing maintenance, eventually it will break down. As will we. So plan some breaks. Do some self-care. But be deliberate about it. We have to make sure that when we set aside time to rest that we actually rest. It’s very easy to feel like taking a break is doing nothing. That’s not the case. Recovery happens in the interim, in the space between actions. The breaks are crucial to our growth and success. And last but not least…
Give yourself a buffer
This is one of the most subtle time management techniques. And this is also the one I struggle with the most. I tend to plan things to the wire, giving myself no room for anything unplanned happening. We all know that’s not how life is though. Things go awry all the time. So planning in some buffer time to our blocks is really important. But not just in that it makes sure we have enough time allocated to our goals. It gives us time to breathe, to think, to unwind. But it also means that we don’t always have to rush. Which means less stress for us. And who doesn’t like less stress?
Thanks for taking some time to talk humans today. How do you approach time management? Let me know in the comments below. Please share this with one person who you think will get something out of it. And don’t forget to talk humans with someone this week. Until next time, ciao!