Are You Protecting Your Time?
I’m too busy; I don’t have time and can’t do that this week. Phrases that are all too common these days. Yet, are they true? Probably not.
If a horrible accident were to occur to a close family member, would you be “too busy” or “not have time” to be at the hospital with them? Of course not. You’d find the time.
The truth is that we always have time. Time is a constant. We get twenty-four hours every day, and we choose how to use that time. When we say, “I’m too busy” or “I don’t have time”, what we are really saying is I do not prioritise what you are asking me to do.
One thing that has always interested me is how people use their time. Some people will wake up at 5 am, drink a glass of water, put their running shoes on and head outside, whatever the weather, for a forty-minute run. To many of you, the thought of doing that is insane, yet to the people who do wake up early to go running, it’s a non-negotiable part of their day. They protect that to get their daily exercise in.
When I tell people about my daily communication hour, I am often asked how I find the time. How else would I be able to stay on top of my emails and messages if I didn’t dedicate time to it each day? Email and messages will never stop coming in. If I don’t spend an hour doing it today, I will have to spend two hours tomorrow. No thank you. I do not want to spend two hours of any day sitting in front of my computer, responding to emails.
Likewise, I dedicate an hour a day to admin tasks. When I look at my task manager and everything that needs to be done each day, a lot of the work is admin-type tasks that just need to be done. If I am not allocating time to do it daily, when will it ever get done?
Try this exercise: open your task manager and look at your tasks. How would you categorise them? If you are like most people, around 40% of them will be communication-related — call Peter, ask Jane, and follow up with Stephanie. Another 40% will be admin-related — book doctors appointment, submit this month’s expense report, put holiday request form in, email monthly sales report to boss etc.
That means 80% (or more) of your daily tasks will fall into one of two categories. When will you do them if you are not allocating time for these activities? Do you really think you will sit down and do your monthly expense report in the ten minutes between meetings? Or are you confident you will find the time to follow up with Stephanie this afternoon?
Not protecting time for these activities causes the biggest issues with how you use your task manager. A task manager can be your greatest ally or your worst enemy. Which one depends on how you operate your calendar. If you have fifteen communication-related tasks for today and no time dedicated to them, they won’t get done. The same applies to your admin. If you have no time protected for doing the tasks, they will just be carried forward to the next day and the next until something breaks.
If you want time to deal with these activities, you will need to protect that time each day. Imagine having two hours dedicated to dealing with your communications and admin daily. No more backlogged and overwhelmed inboxes and being up to date on your expenses, taxes and weekly reports.
It’s not impossible. All it takes is a little organisation and the ability to say “no politely”. Setting aside two hours each day for 80% of your tasks still leaves you with six to seven hours for meetings and dealing with the random tasks given to you by your boss and customers. Surely that’s enough time?
To implement this change, you can set up a template in your calendar. To do this, look at your calendar over the last few weeks and see where you are consistently quiet. Ideally, you want to set your communication time to later. For instance, my communication time is from 4 to 5 pm. This way, I avoid email ping-pong because any replies I get will likely come late in the day, so I am not obliged to reply the same day. I do my admin after dinner just before my evening meetings begin (I work mornings and evenings, taking the afternoons off)
These times are fixed in my calendar and set to recur at the same time each day, which means it’s practically impossible for anyone to book an appointment with me at those times.
What about time for deep, focused work? For you to do the work you were employed to do, you will need some time each day to do it. This time is what I call focused time, and as with your admin and communications, you must ensure you have the time protected.
Most people are at their most focused and creative in the mornings. This means to be at your best when doing your most important work; you should protect time in the morning. I protect 9:30 to 11:00 am each day except for Thursday and Sundays when I leave myself open to meetings. Again, this is blocked out on my calendar as a recurring event. This means before my week even begins, I know I have sufficient time blocked out for getting my most important work done as well as time for communications and admin.
Each day, I am protecting three and a half hours. This leaves me with six hours daily to be available for anyone else. Would that be enough for you?
It’s not impossible to make sure you have enough time to get everything done, but it does mean you need to get strict with your calendar and protect the time you need for doing the work that needs doing. It’s when we are lax and undisciplined with our time that we find we don’t have enough time for the things that matter. That’s not someone else’s fault. That’s on you.
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