Taking Command of Your Time

Do you ever ask yourself these questions?

How can I be Proactive instead of Reactive?
How do I balance the demands of my work life, while still having a quality personal life?
How do I let go of burdensome tasks, so I can work on ones that are important to me?
How do I organize my time and space so that it works for ME???
There is so much, how do I even know where to start every day?
My To-Do List is never ending, how can I ever get it all done?
How do I avoid procrastinating?
How can I not be so overwhelmed by all that needs to be done?

By the end of this module, you will have many of the answers to these questions and will be well on your way to Taking Command of Your Time!

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SEE Your Relationship to Time

How many times have you heard the following lamentations: “If only I had more TIME!” “There is never enough TIME!” “Where did all the TIME go?” When you ask someone how they are, what is the most common response you receive? We notice the response is BUSY. We wear BUSY like a badge of honor! A BUSY person must be accomplishing a lot, important, valuable… And of course the opposite of busy is LAZY, and who wants to be that? The busy are rewarded, the lazy are condemned.

Our lives keep getting busier and busier. We constantly get requests for demands of our time – in person, via email, via social media. In this module we will use the term demands to encompass all tasks, projects, commitments, and agreements that you have committed to or that have been committed to you.

Does this sound familiar?

Nancy works hard and performed multiple roles in her life. Her life just keeps getting busier. When you ask her how she is doing she says “BUSY.” She is rewarded for being busy, working harder than the next person, and being independent. There is NEVER enough time to get it all done. When she is behind on a deadline, she will focus single mindedly on the time shortage and will be unable to consider the future consequences of her decisions. She will multitask, because she thinks that makes her more productive. She will reschedule other work, causing a delay in another project. When she is at her family events, she is not really present, because she is worried about her project, constantly checking her phone and antsy to get back to work. As a result, she becomes more taxed mentally, has more errors, has poorer work and becomes more irritable with family and friends. This becomes a vicious cycle.

We invite you to start to explore your relationship to time [we will go deeper into this in a later section].

How do you decide how you use your time?
When someone makes requests on your time, how do you respond? Do you respond with an immediate yes, out of fear of saying no and looking “bad”?
What agreements have you made with other individuals that you later regret because you did not fully think through what the commitment meant?
How often have you used the excuse that you are “too busy” to do something you would enjoy or that would nurture your wellness?
What does BUSY mean to you? What does LAZY mean to you? Why is it important to be busy? Who would you be if you were not busy? What would others think of you if you were not busy?
What does planning mean to you? Time management?
What does saying no mean to you?
What does delegating mean to you?
What does email mean to you, social media mean to you, your smart phone mean to you?

A note on Scarcity

We live in a society of time scarcity (and many other forms of scarcity, for that matter!). In their book, Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, Sendhill Mullainathan and Eldar Sharif write that having a scarcity mentality leads to the busy remaining busy. Scarcity, by their definition, is when an individual feels (s)he has less of something than (s)he needs. Scarcity captures the mind, allowing the automatic process of fight, flight, or freeze to take over. A sense of tunnel vision develops and we become unable to see alternatives and problem solve efficiently. Their studies show that scarcity mindset leads to reduced mental resources, which actually makes us dumber and more impulsive!

SEE Your Current Demands

Approach: Be nonjudgmental, open, and forgiving during this activity. Be a witness to what you are doing & thinking and why without being critical. SEEing is access to Creating & Living The Alternatives!!!!

We invite you to consider that you really have no idea of all that you are really doing and why you are doing it. We invite you to put it all on paper, so you can really see what you have committed to and really begin exploring why you do what you do. Use our Current Demands Assessment to support you in doing this.

If you do not wish to do this on paper, you may consider doing it in your calendar (paper or electronic). You may wish to use colors to delineate the items you like, loathe, etc.

Put EVERYTHING you are doing on your form/calendar. Begin noticing your reactions to each item, even your reaction to looking at this list!

Email
Social Media
Phone Time (calls, texting)
Work
Meetings
Commuting or Travel Time
Physical Activity, Eating, Sleeping
Errands & Chores – cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping, etc.
Family Care & Self-Care

Be sure to use the inquiry activity no matter how you structure the exploration. If you are using an electronic device, consider putting your responses to the inquiry into your notes section. Really look for yourself!

SEE the Truth about Multi-tasking & Interruptions

Multitasking

The ability to multitask is another badge of honor that we wear. Multi-tasking is a bit of a misnomer. When we multi-task, we are actually shifting our focus from one task to another. The reality of multi-tasking is that it takes longer to accomplish tasks and the quality of the end result is often compromised when we multi-task.

Consistently multi-tasking leads to chronic distraction. We have more difficulty determining the relevancy and priority of demands. Studies show that people who consistently multi-task struggle to be focused when they really need to be. The ironic part is they really think they are great at multi-tasking AND that they can focus really well on demand-but the studies actually show the opposite!

People who multi-task have trained their brains to work this way, and now it has become a habitual pattern. See our video blog, Creatures of Habit, to learn more about how habits develop.

What do you see for yourself about multi-tasking? Consider doing the SEE the Whole Story Activity around this topic alone to really get the impact of multi-tasking for you!

Interruptions

Do you work (or live) in a place where you get lots of interruptions? If you say no, we would be shocked. Interruptions can be from an email, text, or social media notification, phone call, or drop-by. Interruptions naturally lead to multitasking.

Use our Interruptions Assessment to explore the frequency & reasons for interruptions, as well as the impact they have on your work. Judge whether the interruption was valid – was it something that should divert your attention? Judge whether the interruption was urgent – was it important that the demand be addressed right then? Be really honest with yourself in assessing the time it takes to re-focus. SEEing your Interruptions gives you an opportunity to create structures that limit interruptions so that you can work more efficiently and with higher quality!

Don’t consider this only for work – look at your home environment as well and what multi-tasking and interruptions cost you at home!

Create the Alternatives through Goals & Values

What is important to YOU? What do YOU want to be doing? What are YOUR Values? What do YOU want to accomplish? Who sets goals for you? What do you want MORE of?

Goals & Values serve as your North Star – They allow you to take command of your time!

Your productivity and efficiency are only as good as your goals and objectives.

Goals provide meaningful direction, alignment, accountability, and decision making.

Allow you to focus your activities toward something you know what you want to accomplish
Reduce wasted effort and time
Allow you to say “no” or “maybe later”
Help to determine what to “let go” or delegate

SMART Goals

Avoid nonspecific, broad goals and assess what it will take to accomplish the goal.

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-Bound

Create your goals WITH your Family, Friends, & Colleagues. Don’t let them choose your goals for you!

Goals & Intentions

Use this form to support you in creating your SMART Goals and Intentions!

Goals Form

Creating the Alternatives through Acceptance, Integrity, & Letting Go

You will never get it all done! Let some go and prioritize the rest!

Acceptance

You will never get it all done. Accepting that fact can calm your stressed brain and allow you to shift your perspective and take new action.

Integrity

Integrity is a state of being wholeness and unity. Look at what you have agreed to do – where are you in integrity and out of integrity? What have you committed to doing and not done and what are the consequences for you and for the other person. How does it affect your relationship, how you see yourself, and how they see you?

Many times the approach we take when we haven’t done something is to sweep it under the rug. Have you noticed that it always shows back up, in one way or another? How is it showing up for you when you are out of integrity?

How do you get back to a state of wholeness and unity? Have a conversation with the person to acknowledge what wasn’t done and what you intend to do about it going forward, if anything. Deal with the mess that it caused. Allow the other person to share what it is like for you to not honor your agreement. Open dialogue as to how the situation can be resolved. It may not be pretty and it will take courage, but get the area complete for both parties.

Letting Go

Let go of resistance, resentment, procrastination, judgments, perfectionism, shoulds and take action.

Look back at your Current Demands Assessment.

What demands can you discontinue, renegotiate, or delegate?

Identify the items where you answered No to “Can only you do it?” Start by stopping those items!
Think about who else might be able to accomplish this demand.
What requests can you make that will have this happen?
What conversations do you need to have to make this happen?
What do you need to put in place to prepare for delegation of the task?

Part of Letting Go is determining what is in the way of saying no and actually saying no.

I choose discomfort over resentment. Brené Brown

There you are, arriving to a meeting at work or school, and someone asks “We were just talking about you! We are starting this new committee and we thought you would be great for it!” What do you do? How do you respond when a request for your time arrives?

Give yourself permission to say No, without having to give reasons or excuses. Consider adopting the mindset of “No is a complete sentence”.
Give yourself permission to consider a request before immediately say yes. Don’t accept immediately or out of rote, take a deep breath and consider:
- Do I really understand what the request is? Is it clear?
- Does this forward a goal or value of mine?
- Will I be able to honor and fulfill the agreement? Do I have time to give this the attention it needs?
- Is there anyone else who should/could do this?
- Will I enjoy this?
- What impact will this have in the long run? On my other commitments? My relationships? My well-being?
Consider adopting this response “”Thank you for thinking of me! I will to take some time to review my commitments and I will get back to you by _____ [give yourself the time you need to choose].”
Brené Brown has a ring that she twists 3 times to give herself the time and space to get present and choose. What practice can you put in place to do the same?
Brené Brown also uses the mantra “I choose discomfort over resentment” – meaning that she chooses to be uncomfortable for the moments it takes to say no, instead of the hours, weeks, months of resentment that may occur out of saying yes to something that she really doesn’t want to do.
Is the request from your boss? Have a conversation about what you are currently working on, what impact doing the new project will have on those areas, AND what the priorities are.

Create the Alternatives through Scheduling & Planning

Scheduling & Planning saves you time, energy, money, and resources!

The 4 D’s of time management

Do it NOW [if it takes less than 2 minutes]
Delegate it
Defer it [add to task list/schedule on calendar for later]
Decline it – Delete it – File it in reference system

This video includes information about scheduling and planning. It is 25 minutes long – set aside a time to view it that works for you or break it up into segments if necessary! Topics include:

Daily and Weekly Planning sessions
Building Habits and Routines that support efficiency, productivity, and goal attainment.
Creating a schedule that works for YOU
Using project management tools to support you
Time Blocking – method of blocking time for similar tasks that repeat over time.
Identifying and scheduling tasks vs projects
4 Ds of Time Management
Do less through delegation

A brief note about this video: This video was created as part of a 3 session webinar series for women. The content is applicable to anyone seeking to take command of their time. We apologize for the quality of the sound. We did not include the first video in this module, so please disregard any reference to that vide. Synergy Efficiency Experts and My Year 4 My Life are divisions of SEE Alternatives, PLLC.

Time yourself to find out how long it takes to do a task. This will help you develop better planning. If you assume it takes you ten minutes to get ready and leave the house, but in reality it takes thirty, you’ll be twenty minutes late for whatever is next on your schedule, and so on for the remainder of the day.

Create the Alternatives through Managing Information Overload

Phone Calls – Phone Notifications – Email – TV/Radio – Social Media – Drop Bys

Managing Information Overload

This video looks at how to manage information overload from a variety of sources, including email. It offers tips on how to manage email to improve efficiency and productivity, as well as your well-being.

Turn off NOTIFICATIONS – email – social media – text

Go back to the Interruptions Assessment you completed. How often were you interrupted? Why? What was the impact on your work? Are you in command of your time or are others in command of it?

Minimizing Interruptions

How?

Look for yourself as to what structures might work for you. We offer some suggestions here, but it is important you find what will work for YOU. We also invite you to consider trying some that you think won’t work and see what happens!

Turn off notifications for email and social media, possibly text
Turn phone on silent, do not disturb for certain periods of time
Communicate with co-workers about times that are designated for high focus work and when you do not want to be interrupted. This will require repeated communication. You have trained them to do what they are doing now, so you will have to un-train them.
Create a sign that reminds other people that you are in focus mode and to not interrupt. You can do this even when you do not have a door to the area, ie cubicle.
Train coworkers and staff and family what constitutes an urgent interruption. Train them to write down valid, non-urgent concerns and discuss them at times that work for you and them.

Adopt the mindset that Single-Tasking is efficient and productive! Studies show that it really is, so start by accepting it and use it to your advantage.

This can be a challenging shift for people. If you would like additional support, visit our shop to set up Phone Coaching Sessions!

Create A Game Plan For Success

You have learned a lot of strategies for Taking Command of Your Time. Having a game plan can make all the difference in putting those strategies into place. Our circumstances have not changed. These circumstances drain our mental energy and the will power we rely on when changing or creating new routines. There will be hurdles and obstacles in our lives that make it difficult to maintain our commitment to the alternatives. Take the time to identify the hurdles and obstacles and create a game plan for success.

Identify Hurdles and Obstacles

By exploring what hurdles and obstacles will get in your way, you can develop actions and strategies to overcome these barriers. Proactively planning for these barriers will improve your success in creating the routines you desire.

Use the questions below to identify your hurdles and obstacles.

What mindset will I adopt about scheduling, planning, and interruptions?
Where are areas that will make it difficult for me to complete my routine as I envision it?
What has caused me to fail instituting the change in the past?
What stressful situations might be coming up in the near future that might derail my plans?

Creating the Game Plan

Now, let’s make a plan. Use the questions below to guide your planning. We offer some possible actions and strategies that might work for you below.

What of the structures offered or ones I saw for myself will I put in place to help me succeed? What actions will I take to take command of my time?
By when will I have the structures in place/take the actions?
How can I keep my commitment alive and present? [we offer the Living My Commitment to Wellness form as an option!]
Who could I share my commitment with? Who will support me in Taking Command of My Time?

Family meetings: Designate time each week to synchronize your family. Everyone brings their calendars, to-do lists, and schedules to the table. Spend the time reviewing the events for the upcoming week, expectations for dinners, chores, et cetera. After you have met with your entire family (thirty minutes), parents should meet to review plans (thirty minutes). Try this… you’ll be amazed at the incredible results for just one hour of investment time!

Living My Commitment

We acknowledge the work and effort it took for you to get to this point in the module! You have discovered a lot about your relationship to time and how you manage your time. You have created the alternatives to managing your time, so now it is time to LIVE the alternatives.

If you have not already done so, complete your Goals Form and post it in places where you can see it to keep them present for you ongoingly!

We also offer you the Living My Commitment to Wellness Form, Monitoring Tool, and Authenticity Assessment to support you in:

keeping your commitment alive
measuring your results
getting real with yourself about your progress

Living My Commitment Forms

Click the button to the right to access the forms mentioned above!

Forms

Do you ever ask yourself these questions?

How can I be Proactive instead of Reactive?

How do I balance the demands of my work life, while still having a quality personal life?

How do I let go of burdensome tasks, so I can work on ones that are important to me?

How do I organize my time and space so that it works for ME???

There is so much, how do I even know where to start every day?

My To-Do List is never ending, how can I ever get it all done?

How do I avoid procrastinating?

How can I not be so overwhelmed by all that needs to be done?

By the end of this module, you will have many of the answers to these questions and will be well on your way to Taking Command of Your Time!

We invite you to start to explore your relationship to time [we will go deeper into this in a later section].

How do you decide how you use your time?

When someone makes requests on your time, how do you respond? Do you respond with an immediate yes, out of fear of saying no and looking “bad”?

What agreements have you made with other individuals that you later regret because you did not fully think through what the commitment meant?

How often have you used the excuse that you are “too busy” to do something you would enjoy or that would nurture your wellness?

What does BUSY mean to you? What does LAZY mean to you? Why is it important to be busy? Who would you be if you were not busy? What would others think of you if you were not busy?

What does planning mean to you? Time management?

What does saying no mean to you?

What does delegating mean to you?

What does email mean to you, social media mean to you, your smart phone mean to you?

A note on Scarcity

What do you see is available if you take command of your time? What do you see as possible if you could choose demands that you will accomplish? If you could say no to demands that don’t work for you? If you could create your day in a way that works for you?

Approach: Be nonjudgmental, open, and forgiving during this activity. Be a witness to what you are doing & thinking and why without being critical. SEEing is access to Creating & Living The Alternatives!!!!

If you do not wish to do this on paper, you may consider doing it in your calendar (paper or electronic). You may wish to use colors to delineate the items you like, loathe, etc.

Put EVERYTHING you are doing on your form/calendar. Begin noticing your reactions to each item, even your reaction to looking at this list!

Email

Social Media

Phone Time (calls, texting)

Work

Meetings

Commuting or Travel Time

Physical Activity, Eating, Sleeping

Errands & Chores – cooking, laundry, cleaning, shopping, etc.

Family Care & Self-Care

Be sure to use the inquiry activity no matter how you structure the exploration. If you are using an electronic device, consider putting your responses to the inquiry into your notes section. Really look for yourself!

Click on Image Below to Access SEE the Whole Story Activity!

Multitasking

People who multi-task have trained their brains to work this way, and now it has become a habitual pattern. See our video blog, Creatures of Habit, to learn more about how habits develop.

What do you see for yourself about multi-tasking? Consider doing the SEE the Whole Story Activity around this topic alone to really get the impact of multi-tasking for you!

Interruptions

Do you work (or live) in a place where you get lots of interruptions? If you say no, we would be shocked. Interruptions can be from an email, text, or social media notification, phone call, or drop-by. Interruptions naturally lead to multitasking.

Don’t consider this only for work – look at your home environment as well and what multi-tasking and interruptions cost you at home!

What is important to YOU? What do YOU want to be doing? What are YOUR Values? What do YOU want to accomplish? Who sets goals for you? What do you want MORE of?

Goals & Values serve as your North Star – They allow you to take command of your time!

Your productivity and efficiency are only as good as your goals and objectives.

Goals provide meaningful direction, alignment, accountability, and decision making.

Allow you to focus your activities toward something you know what you want to accomplish

Reduce wasted effort and time

Allow you to say “no” or “maybe later”

Help to determine what to “let go” or delegate

SMART Goals

Avoid nonspecific, broad goals and assess what it will take to accomplish the goal.

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-Bound

Create your goals WITH your Family, Friends, & Colleagues. Don’t let them choose your goals for you!

Use this form to support you in creating your SMART Goals and Intentions!

You will never get it all done! Let some go and prioritize the rest!

Acceptance

You will never get it all done. Accepting that fact can calm your stressed brain and allow you to shift your perspective and take new action.

Integrity

Many times the approach we take when we haven’t done something is to sweep it under the rug. Have you noticed that it always shows back up, in one way or another? How is it showing up for you when you are out of integrity?

Letting Go

Let go of resistance, resentment, procrastination, judgments, perfectionism, shoulds and take action.

Look back at your Current Demands Assessment.

What demands can you discontinue, renegotiate, or delegate?

Identify the items where you answered No to “Can only you do it?” Start by stopping those items!

Think about who else might be able to accomplish this demand.

What requests can you make that will have this happen?

What conversations do you need to have to make this happen?

What do you need to put in place to prepare for delegation of the task?

Part of Letting Go is determining what is in the way of saying no and actually saying no.

I choose discomfort over resentment. Brené Brown

There you are, arriving to a meeting at work or school, and someone asks “We were just talking about you! We are starting this new committee and we thought you would be great for it!” What do you do? How do you respond when a request for your time arrives?

Give yourself permission to say No, without having to give reasons or excuses. Consider adopting the mindset of “No is a complete sentence”.

Give yourself permission to consider a request before immediately say yes. Don’t accept immediately or out of rote, take a deep breath and consider:

Do I really understand what the request is? Is it clear?