EP 009: It’s Time to Figure Out Your Time

 

Do you feel like you have no idea where all the time in your day and week go? Listen to this episode for time management tips, tricks, and hacks to keep your focus on track. 

Hey, friend! Before we dive into all the good stuff, I want you to prepare for it by relistening to episode 5 of the podcast. If you can recall, it’s all about being proactive versus reactive. I want you to listen to it because it’s important to know that you simply cannot manage your time when you are in a reactive state. Once you’re all done, come back here and press play!

As Beyonce

Have you ever heard the quote, “You have as many hours in the day as Beyonce?”

This may be a true statement, but she also has a massive team of people who help her get everything done.

We all have the same hours in the day, but every single person has different responsibilities and priorities.

With that in mind, let’s talk about your days, your weeks, and how to stay focused on the tasks at hand.

Why Time Management Can Be So Overwhelming

There is a common misconception with time management that says if we are managing our time and staying organized, we’re doing it because we just want to be a busy bee. We want to hustle, hustle, hustle.

Now, I’m all about the hustle. But the reason I organize my time the way I do is so I have the freedom to do what I want to do with my time.

Being a productive person does not mean you are scheduling your calendar to the point where it is so full you are overwhelmed. It’s so that you can free up more time in order for you to spend your time on the things you want to spend it on.

If you are someone who is not getting ahead of your time, my challenge for you is to get in a proactive state of mind. I talk all about this in episode 5, so be sure to give it a listen if you have not yet done so!

The Challenge For Your Brain

Instead of challenging your brain with, “What should I do today?” “What’s next on my list?” or “Where did my day go?” you should be challenging it with “How can I solve X, Y, or X?” This could easily be a work project.

The point I am trying to make here is that we have to plan ahead. If we don’t, we will find ourselves with decision fatigue and unable to be as productive as we desire to be.

Time Blocking & Batching

Tip: Plan your week out on Sunday nights. Write down everything that needs to get done for work and your personal life. Get as specific as possible: working out, laundry, work projects, store purchase returns, meetings, etc. Literally everything.

Once you’ve got everything written down, get even more specific and designate times for each action. This will show you how much time you really do have. In addition, it will help you keep your mind in the lane it needs to be as you perform each task.

Something I personally do is assign each day of the week to a specific category. For example, Mondays are admin days for me. I focus on emails, contracts, and meeting with my assistant to go over the week’s needs. I also tend to take Monday mornings off because, as a wedding photographer, my weekends are pretty wild.

The Pomodoro Technique

Have you heard of the Pomodoro Technique? If not, I’m so excited to introduce it to you!

This is where you work for twenty-five minutes and when the timer goes off, you take a break for five. You can walk around, check your phone, drink some water, whatever you want to do. Then, you start your next twenty-five minutes. After four rounds of twenty-minute work periods, you take a longer break.

This has been a gamechanger in my productivity.

This method helps you train your brain to really zone in and focus, but you are also giving it a nice break throughout the day.

Find a free version of a Pomodoro timer here.

The Ivy Lee Method

Once you have your week set up, you have blocked and batched your time, you have written out all the things you need to get done, and you have assigned your week to when you are going to do them, it’s time to give the Ivy Lee Method a try.

Write out seven things that you are going to get done, in importance. This means you are starting your day with the hardest thing first, and you cannot move on to the next task until the first one is done.

Recommended Reads

Power of Habit

4 Hour Work Week

Deep Work

Atomic Habits

Limitless