Time Management: Why You Need It
Let’s be honest, it’s easy to be busy. It’s a bit harder to be productive. Knowing what you have to get done and getting it done are two different things. “Neo, you will learn there is a difference between knowing the path and walking it” says Morpheus. For me, it was a matter of getting control of my time. I have time. If you’ve read my discussion of how much time I have left from Covid, then you know what my day sorta looks like. It hasn’t changed much even though I have gone back to work. My work schedule leaves me with A LOT of time to work on other projects. So if you’re like me, with a list of things you need to get done in any given day and lots of time to do it in (which often leads to binges on Netflix), here’s the system I use to get control of getting things done.
My 2 Color Time Management System
It is only two colors, right now gold and purple. Those are favorites of mine and they offer an immediate eye-catching contrast. My gold blocks are multi-hour blocks of time in which I have to do something which is FIXED, major routines, scheduled work, appointments, etc. My purple blocks are one hour blocks I can devote to other things. Often, I will include things like mealtimes in my 1-hr blocks because then I know when I can go nosh on something instead of getting up every few minutes to investigate the fridge. That’s the system in a nutshell. I use a bullet journal so that I can see back across my week what I’ve done and what I still have to get finished, but you can build this on a sheet of paper at the beginning of the day (or the night before) and it will be just as effective.
Implementing it
Things you need: Two different colors of pen/marker, a sheet of paper to write on, and some idea of what you want your day to look like. (Super simple!)
My first gold block of every day is my morning routine. It’s just an hour and a half, but it lets me know I have blocked off this time to get this done. I know what time I get up every morning and I know approximately what time I should be finished. By the same token, my last gold block in any day is my bedtime. I know when I’m going to bed. Usually my last purple block ends a half-hour before my bedtime so I have time to get my PJs on, put some soft music on, and ease out of my day.
Between those two gold blocks, I will count off how many one hour blocks I have until I have to do something fixed and then put that into my set-up. For instance, I may have work that day, I put a gold block in for the hours I have to be at work. If I have multiple gold blocks, this also tells me that I have LESS time to devote to outside projects and helps me to scale back my expectations for the day.
After you’ve put in all your fixed blocks, it’s time to put in your unfixed time and give it a designation. Maybe you have your to-do list brain dumped out on the paper beside the block schedule. This can help you know what you’re going to do at any given point throughout the day. Again, make sure you’re scheduling times for meals so you don’t go through your whole day and realize you’ve gotten lots done but you’re STARVING. My other caveat is don’t just schedule your time for work. Schedule your time for play as well. Dr. Neil Fiore, in “The Now Habit,” says those who get the most done are dedicated to their leisure time. Knowing when you’re going to go off and do something fun can help make getting the work done a whole lot easier. I admit, I sometimes struggle with this concept because I’m a recovering workaholic.
That’s the concept in a nutshell though. You take two colors and figure out your fixed versus unfixed time for the day and then follow your schedule to the best of your ability. Notice, I say to the best of your ability. Life likes to throw curveballs. So if you can’t follow the system on a given day, don’t beat yourself up. Try again tomorrow. Let me know if you give this a shot. I’d love to hear about and see what you come up with.
