The ongoing battle to find more time...

Many of us lead very busy lives...we attempt (and many succeed) to balance work, family, hobbies, community, and school. There are many like me, however, who struggle to find more hours in the day and days in the week to accomplish all we set out to do. Too many times I get to the end of the day and am perplexed at how little I managed to accomplish...it is like my to-do list is hijacked and, I know I’m not the only one! A Google search on “time management” resulted in over 9 million hits – many of the top focused on time management skills and resources.

Time is constant...as Julie Morganstern (1998) put it, “Time is measurable, and we all get exactly the same amount - 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.” Given this why do so many seem to struggle to manage time? Perhaps it is because we approach it from the wrong direction – what if, instead of trying to manage time, we learned to manage ourselves?

A good first step in is to analyze how or what seems to fill your day. Take a moment (assuming you can find one) to ask yourself:

• How do you manage your work day now?
  o What’s working and what’s not?
  o What time of day are you at your best?
  
• What things are you juggling?
  o Work
  o School
  o Family
  o Other
  
• What hinders your ability to manage your day (time) effectively?
  o Constant interruptions
  o Inefficient workspace
  o Shifting priorities / deadlines
  o Disorganization
  o Inability to say “no”

Once you have a better sense of what is negatively impacting your day you can look for solutions.

• If you are struggling to efficiently plan and prioritize projects/tasks
  o Ask for help
  o Read a book on time management, setting priorities, or even goal setting
  o Participate in a workshop
  
• If disorganization and inefficient workspace is a problem
  o Take time to clean and organize your office/workspace
  o Develop a filing system that will make sense for you!
  
• If you are constantly interrupted by phone calls, emails, visitors
  o Institute a “no-email” policy – many organizations are instituting email-free zones (i.e., no emails between 10am and 2pm daily)
  o Turn your phone off for an hour or so each day
  
• If priorities and deadlines keep shifting
  o Ask for help / clarification...engage your team / manager in how to best prioritize work load

Know your PRIME TIME and plan schedules and projects accordingly

• Work on complex projects when creativity and concentration are at peak
• You’re motivated and at your best
• Leave less demanding activities for low energy times

Most importantly, remember:

Time is free, but it's priceless.

You can't own it, but you can use it.

You can't keep it, but you can spend it.

Once you've lost it

you can never get it back

~Harvey MacKay

New Beginnings

It’s officially spring…a time of endings and new beginnings. William Bridges introduced a transition model that involves 3 different zones…an ending, a neutral zone, and, finally, a new beginning. This is a good time of year to reflect on what each of those zones holds for you.

In Canada, April marks the beginning of a new fiscal year for our government (which, within Life Strategies means an end to several of the government-funded research and development projects we’ve been working on). It’s also the end of the university term – with lots of end-of-term projects and marking but also a chance to look ahead and prep for the new term beginning in a few weeks.

In our gardens, we’re seeing new buds on trees and fresh growth poking through the ground. In front of our new Life Strategies offices we were delighted to see the spindly trees out front erupt with gorgeous pink Magnolia blooms – like a reward for surviving a long and busy winter.

To successfully move on to something new, however, requires attending to all the tasks associated with closure and completion of projects. It’s easy to get excited about new beginnings and ignore those final pieces that wrap up the past season, life stage, or contract.

Within the Life Strategies team, we sometimes engage in “ticky contests” at such transitional times. In our ticky contests, we earn points for completing items on our To Do lists – each task, no matter how small, earns a ticky. Everyone benefits by having the weight of endless to do items finally removed from their shoulders – and all get rewarded (usually with gift certificates); the person with the most tickies, of course, gets doubly rewarded – a shorter “to do” moving into the new season as well as the biggest gift certificate!

The neutral zone is a time of reflection, regrouping, and redirection. It can be an exciting time as old projects are tidied up and new possibilities are considered. However, it can also be a confusing time, with less certainty about schedules and expectations in the months ahead.

Within the Life Strategies team, after extending Amanda Pereira’s contract for 3 “new beginnings,” we’ve now said “au revoir” (the French version of “until we meet again, rather than a more permanent “goodbye”). We have been working full out for the past year and are very much looking forward to a slightly quieter spring and summer for consolidating some of our in-house projects as well as beginning several new external ones. In his work on Flow, Csikszentmihalyi wrote of the importance of matching skills to challenge; in my own “flow” research, I’ve added “resources” to the skills side of the equation – Flow occurs when challenges are carefully balanced to available skills and resources. We can use the neutral zone to replenish resources and re-energize, ready to face new beginnings with energy and excitement.

As you reflect on your own transitions this season:

• What still needs your attention and energy?
• What needs closure?
• What needs to be completed before you can move on?
• What is happening for you in the neutral zone that sometimes comes with springtime?
• Have you taken the chance to re-energize over this Easter long weekend?
• Looking ahead, is there something you need to do to prepare for the upcoming season?
• As you enter a new beginning, what excites you?
• How will you keep your energy up?
• What resources will you need, personally and professionally, for a successful transition?
  
  
  
  
  

Shifting Priorities

As I was sitting here contemplating my next blog topic I was having difficulty thinking of a new and exciting employee engagement topic for which to focus my next blog on; so I started to think of everything that I’ve done today and began thinking about how it’s near the end of my day and how I have stayed productive and engaged throughout the entire day. After thinking about it for a while I looked back over my task list I noticed that I have been able to switch from one task to another several times throughout the day. After working on one project for a considerable length of time and feeling my creative juices for that project fading fast I decided to put it aside and refresh with a new task: writing my monthly blog entry. So this is where I am now.

[1].

If you have the flexibility within your own job to create your own schedule throughout the day – I encourage you to do so. If one project begins to become mundane, set it aside and pick up a new one. At least for myself I find this helps my productivity throughout the day. I find that I cannot force myself to be creative and once that runs out, the best thing to do is to switch up the project and come back to it at a later time. If shifting to another project is not an option, one source suggests shutting down your computer temporarily and taking a break as an alternative to staying productive

Now in the last few minutes I have been able to complete my next blog entry where if I had stayed focused on the project I was working on before I likely would not have accomplished nearly as much.

[1] http://lifelearningtoday.com/2007/08/23/25-tips-to-become-more-productive-and-happy-at-work/