Throw Away Your Time Journal

Struggling to manage your time?

Feeling overwhelmed by all you have to do?

Waking up with that pit in your stomach, asking yourself how on earth will I get it all done?

Don’t do a time journal. Counter-intuitive? Here’s what you should do instead.

Right now — go get a piece of paper and write down everything you did yesterday. Start with the moment you woke up until the time you went to sleep. Don’t open your calendar. Just write down what you did yesterday.

Chances are it’s not easy to recreate yesterday’s calendar. If you can’t remember what you did yesterday, you have confirmed that you could do a better job managing your time. If you know that already, keeping a time journal won’t tell you anything new.

Stop looking back. Why berate yourself about feeling swamped, overwhelmed and unproductive. Look ahead.

The great news is that you can start looking ahead now. Break the cycle of always playing catch-up.

Here’s how to manage your time in 6 simple steps:

1. At the start of the week, decide what results you want to create.

   Set aside an hour first thing Monday morning to decide what you want to get done. Make sure you’re defining the results you want to create for the week — which is not the same as deciding how you want to spend your time. For example, rather than planning to work on cleaning up your hard drive, tell yourself you’re going to clean up your hard drive. Rather than planning to research other peoples’ websites, decide you’ll complete a draft of your website.

   Define what you want to complete. Write out those results.

2. Assign the amount of time you’ll need.

   Next to each result you will create, write down how much time you’ll give yourself.

   For example, to complete the draft of your website, you might want to spend two hours doing an outline, then two hours completing content for half of the pages, followed by two hours completing content for the remaining pages. By the end of those six hours, you’ll have your draft.

3. Prioritize the things that matter most.

   Next, put aside your results list. And now, finally, open your calendar.

   Start by blocking out on your calendar time for the things that matter most. That could be a date with your spouse or an outing with your children. It could be going for a walk in the woods, meeting a friend for coffee, reading a novel — whatever you want to do to take care of yourself and those you love — anything that gives you meaning. Put those onto your calendar first.

4. Now go back to your results list.

   Having blocked out what matters most, take out the list of results you want to create. Using the times you’ve assigned, block out those times on your calendar. For example, assign two hours on Monday to outline your website, two hours on Wednesday to draft content for half of your web pages, etc.

5. Throw away your to-do list. Everything’s on your calendar. You don’t need your to-do list any more.

   You know what you’re going to complete and you know when you’ll get it done.

6. Honor your calendar.

   Here’s the most important part: Honor your calendar and the timeframes you have assigned. Follow them like you’d adhere to your kids’ activity schedules, or your doctor appointments, or your work commitments to others. Treat the times you have blocked out for yourself as ironclad, unshakeable promises.

   Anticipate what will go wrong. Have a plan to get back on track.

   Things will go wrong.

   You’ll get an unexpected call in the middle of completing a chapter of your book. Your meeting will get cancelled. Your kids will need to get picked up from school early.

   Know that things will come up. Don’t focus on the interruptions. Focus on getting back on track and continue. Don’t give up on getting to your result. Shift timeslots around if you need to. Or simply block out from 2 to 3 p.m. every day for “other.” Either way, have a plan for how you’ll use your day.

   Make the tasks fit the time.

   What if things take longer than you think? The short answer is, don’t let the task expand. Finish within the time you allowed. If it’s not 100% perfect, that’s okay.

   A work in progress.

   The first few weeks you manage your calendar this way, you’ll see right away where and how you need to build in flexibility.

   Make adjustments as needed. Over time you’ll get better at estimating the time you’ll need.

   Trust me — it will get easier.

   The best part of it is that you’ll be making — and meeting — commitments to yourself. Over time, you’ll build trust in yourself to meet your calendar commitments.

   Imagine what it could feel like to wake up tomorrow knowing that what you plan to complete is as good as done.

   Why is it as good as done? Because you will have decided when and how — managing your time vs. allowing your time to manage you.