You Don't Need to Manage Your Time Better
It is not about getting a new planner, a better system or learning the latest hack. If success was all about time management, everyone with a Bullet Journal, the coolest planner and the latest productivity app would be killing it!
I get it. You feel time starved. You wish there were more hours in the day. You are pulled in a million directions and you don’t feel like you are doing any one of those million things well. Everything just gets tiny bits of your attention.
While time is real and you need to be aware of and maximize your calendar, what is more important is consciously managing your energy and attention. When you get super clear about what drains your energy and fuels you, you can double your output. As you start to move into your genius zone, obstacles will arise (a good sign). This is where attention management comes in.
Keep a notebook with you, and track your energy & attention for a week or so. Here’s how:
Write down what drains your energy and what fuels you and fills you up. Maybe you hate the am commute, phone calls are draining and you detest putting together presentations. However, what lights you up is conversations with other people, your writing projects and your team meeting.
Pay special attention to things that occupy your mind-share. Let’s say you are dreading having to talk to a client about an issue, saying no to the PTA president, or a family event you need to attend later in the week. Put those invisible drainers in the notebook too. Those are energy leaks, you could be using that precious energy elsewhere!
Take note of the habits that fuel you. This could be getting out into nature, a workout, meditation, or eating nutritious well balanced meals. Write those down too and make note of how you feel after you spend time there.
Notice what you long to say no to. You know the drill, someone asks you to work on a project, give the kids a ride somewhere, do them a favor and your body screams “no” but your voice says “yes”… I won’t make you move into “full body yes’s only” mode straight away but start by noticing when your body screams “no” and put that on your energy leak list.
What do you lose track of time doing (in a good way). These are the areas of your life where you feel “in the flow” and time flies by. Before you know it, hours have passed and you wish you didn’t have to stop.
Lastly, at the end of the day, ask yourself - what got most of my attention? There may be a few things. For each of them, ask yourself - is this in alignment with who I want to be?
After you’ve kept this notebook for awhile, this is when you can really start to take charge of your time in ADDITION to managing your energy and attention. You can add things into your day that fuel your energy. You can delegate, outsource, or delete the things that drain you! You’ll have resistance to doing both of these things and if you do, thats good because it means its the most important thing you can do for you.
Most importantly, now that you are armed with knowledge about YOU, you can consciously choose where you put your attention! If things that you DO NOT want in your life get most of your attention, you are perpetuating the issue because where your attention goes, energy flows. It is not until we place our attention strategically on what we want more of (even when we don’t have it in our life yet), that we feel good about how we spend our days.
