This week is going to be fun and action packed, so I wanted to bring you something short and sweet. I planned my week carefully on Sunday night as I always do, which included the time slot for writing my post. I went back and forth a little bit about whether or not I should skip this week since I took off work to hang out with family and celebrate my daughter’s birthday. Thanks to my excellent time management skills, I realized it would be no problem to stay on my regular schedule and that’s when I got the idea for this post.
A lot of people ask me how I get it all done and then I show them pictures of my planner. Every hour of every day is planned (you can also read my previous posts about this very topic!). I often get comments like, “I am not good at time management” or “I could never do that”. I have great news for you if that resonates…you can decide that you will get good at time management and that in fact you can do that.
So why do it? Here are my top 3 reasons!
- Decreases anxiety. This one is huge for me. If you are also a parent while working a full time job, you know it is easy to become overwhelmed with all the things that need to be done. Managing one school calendar is hard enough, forget about multiple! I love sitting down and planning each day of the week because I know when I wake up every day for the next 7 days, I don’t have to worry about what I am supposed to be doing. All I need to do is take a look at my planner and see what the next thing on there is. Sometimes my brain tries to freak out and starts thinking “What am I supposed to be doing, there is too much going on,” but then I remember it is already ALL planned out and I just need to look at my calendar. Easy peasy lemon squeezy…as my daughter likes to say.
- Allows you to make better decisions. I like to plan my week Sunday night after my kids’ go to bed. I am not stressed because I usually don’t have clinic on Mondays and I can work from home. I make a list of all the things that need to get done that week but also look at my schedule to fit all the things I want to get done. I make smart decisions at that time, like picking the harder work out or making sure I give myself time to finish my notes every time after clinic is done. The same goes with my meal calendar for the week. I already know that when real life happens, I am going to want to leave work immediately, choose a restorative yoga class that has me lying on the floor, and picking up Shake Shack on my way home. Creating a calendar that already made all the choices for me for the week cuts down on chances of making bad decisions.
- Creates more freedom by allowing you to work smarter, not harder. Time management allows you to take a look at the time in front of you and the things you want to get done. This can be work related but it also applies to family time, vacations, reading books, whatever you want. When you plan your time well, you get to decide how much something should take (within reason of course!) and how you will fit it all together like a puzzle. For example, I can decide that I will schedule an hour to write an abstract. If I didn’t do that, I may sit around for 3 hours staring at my computer. When I give myself deadlines, I get stuff done. I also like to build a little bit of extra time throughout the week to complete important tasks if I miscalculated the timing or if unexpected things came up that needed to be dealt with quickly.
I have been meeting lots of people, especially at work, who have asked for help around time management. I have been thinking about creating an online course that can help anyone get started in this endeavor. If that is you and you are interested, let me know!
Top 2 reasons why I like to manage my time below!
