Do you spend your days juggling numerous unrelated tasks while working at a job, as well as managing life on the home front? This hectic business and personal schedule can cause a teeter totter effect, with some days more family, and others more business. The question becomes how to keep all the plates spinning without shorting anyone of your efforts or time.
We have become a society of professional multitaskers, managing a wide umbrella of duties within a small frame of time. With so much going on, how is it possible to do it all without sacrificing family or self-care for the career or job? In order to get more quality out of the quantity of your time, you need to have a plan to help guide your choices. Without planning it is easy to mismanage the time you have. Using this five step plan and a sheet of paper can help you map a more productive day..
1. Create a "What Matters Most" list.
You start by focusing your thinking, targeting your efforts and prioritizing your tasks. To determine your priorities, the first step is to create your "What Matters Most to Me" list. Choose the top five things that are important to you and write them at the top of a page.
2. Create a "Time Demands" list. Categories include:
1. Outside of the home: Duties, Tasks, Responsibilities,
2. Inside of the home: Duties, Tasks, Responsibilities
3. Recreation/Relaxation
4. Family
5. Self-Care
6. Spiritual/Volunteer or Helping Others
Below your "What Matters Most to Me" list, begin to list of all the things that compete for your time. Group them in categories, so they will be easier to manage. By mapping your time demands this way, you will be able to visualize the relevance of each task and how it fits into your schedule. Highlight the non-negotiable tasks that must be done and then underline those that would be considered high need. Everything else would fall into the, "When I have time" category.
3. Align activities with what matters most.
To streamline your schedule you must make choices from a point of perspective. Most people discover that they are not spending their time in alignment with what is important to them. This happens for many reasons but often it is due to a lack of perspective.
It is difficult to see the big picture while standing within it, much like viewing a city layout from street level. It limits your planning options when flush is the only view you have, but climb to the top of a tall building and you will find a sharper perspective to plan from.
That is what time mapping can do for you. It raises your perspective allowing you to make more informed and consistent choices about how to spend your time. When done consistently it eliminates confusion and allows you to spend your time in ways that further your goals.
4. Discover your blocks of time.
Each activity or task represents a block of time. White space is also a block. To keep a productive schedule, you need to purposefully decide which blocks get priority for the day. This helps you avoid situations where you spend too much time on low priority tasks, leaving no room for more goal-focused ones.
5. Create your personal time map.
Below your "Time Demands" list, begin placing blocks into your schedule. Start with the highlighted tasks, and then add in the underlined ones. Take a good look at what this leaves you with. It is only now that you might consider sprinkling in the rest where you have open blocks.
Consider white space as a gift, protect it and manage it well. White space is not an invitation to keep adding more activity. You need open time, just as children need recess. Back to back, or overlapped activity tasks without margin in between, results in burnout and is an inefficient use of time.
Studies show that the more you attempt to do in the same time block, the less efficient each task is handled. You owe it to yourself to put your best foot forward by planning and executing a productive day. The time you save by mapping, far exceeds the time spent to create it. This results in a more purposeful use of your time and helps you accomplish what you determine is truly valuable to you.
Seeing the ways you spend time unproductively, on things that don't matter in the big picture, can be an eye-opening experience. This happens subconsciously. Time mapping brings it into your awareness and forces you to either make changes or realize that what matters most to you is not what you originally thought. Either way, you will be more informed and aware about how you choose to spend your valuable blocks of time.
"Wellness Matters" Article Series by Lisa Schilling RN, CPT
Speaker, Writer, Wellness Coach & Consultant
Lisa Schilling is the author of "The Get REAL Guide to Health and Fitness-FIVE STEPS to Create Your Own Personal Wellness Plan" She is juggles life as a doting wife and the mother of three boys, who keep her feet firmly planted on the ground!
Lisa is a Registered Nurse, author and recovering pageant queen, who spreads hope with her Get REAL approach to wellness. She empowers women, caregivers and groups to unleash their fullest potential by helping them to see their true beauty and discover their REAL value.
She feels passionate about spreading this message of hope and acceptance to help others be PROactive about their health and not simply REactive. Lisa uses her enthusiasm to inspire people to value and appreciate who they are. She helps people build a bridge from where they are, to where they want to be.
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