Thoughts on Time Management

In the past weeks, I've done a lot of thinking about how to get everything done that needs to be done in my life. The addition of baby number five has revealed my lack of life management and organizational skills. I want to be relaxed and flexible, able to drop everything and care about people when needs come up. On the flip side, I want to have a disciplined and peaceful home where the laundry is done, the house is clean and the meals are always well-prepared and on time. Since Judd was born, there has not been a single night when I fell into bed with every need met or every job done. I seem to be constantly frustrated and behind the ball. I'm a work in progress, but here are a few important principles I've come across. I'd welcome any help I can get!

1. Define your priorities and schedule times to get them done.

This principle comes from an online article entitled What I Learned About Productivity From My Son's Kindergarten Class. Here's a quote comparing a project-based approach and a schedule-based approach:

...a very project-based mindset. Your focus can be to get your projects done. But what about the ongoing things you want to be doing and advancing at?

This is where the kindergarten room was so brilliant. They had a defined time each day to work on the days of the week and alphabet. They also had defined times for reading and some other things. The teacher didn’t just have those things on a next action list to do “when we get the chance.” She was intentional about them.

Here’s the lesson: Don’t just define a time to do your next actions in general, although that alone is helpful. You should also define about 2-5 key ongoing priorities to you and schedule slots of time each week in your calendar to work on them.

You don’t need to create next actions for these areas. That’s part of the point — if HR is one of your many responsibilities in your job, for example, there is a lot of value in saying “from 3-5 every Thursday afternoon I’m going to think about HR strategy.” You don’t want to have to rely only on HR-related projects to keep your HR responsibility in motion; define some operational time for giving focused thought to the area and then work on the most important things that come to mind then.

2. Orient your life around relationships, not tasks.

This principle comes from this excellent article called To Do List...Redeemed. It contrasts the traditional "to do" list with a "to be" list. There is a downloadable "to be" list included. (Thanks to Mary for this link.)