Time Management: Organizing Your Schedule So Its Balanced
I recently heard Laura Vanderkam
, author of “168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think”, speak at a NAPO-NY meeting about time management and organizing tasks/activities. She got me thinking about how much time I really have each week and how I’m spending it. Once I subtract time for the 2 largest time consuming activities…sleeping and working… there are still 72 hours left. Even with time factored in for meals and putting in more than 8 hours per day for work at various points during the week, there are at least 50 hours left in the week. Divided by 7 days, that comes out to about 7 hours per day.
The first question is “do I have a good balance between work and my personal life” and the second is “am I leaving time to do things that I like/want to do”. In order to be sure that I am addressing both of these, I am more consciously applying the following time management guidelines when organizing my week.
1. 1 Calendar. I am using only one calendar to schedule business and personal appointments and activities and I advise all of my clients who turn to me as their NYC Professional Organizer to do the same. This way I always have the complete picture when trying to schedule in a new appointment.
2. Say No! As difficult as it might be at times, I am trying to not over schedule any one day and to not over commit myself in regards to the outside projects or responsibilities that I take on for the organizations to which I belong. This is one of the biggest pieces of time management advice I can give as a NYC Professional Organizer.
3. Master To Do List. I keep a running list of all of the tasks that need to be done. Each day I review it to determine which 2-3 tasks need to be done that day.
4. One Slice at a Time. Instead of trying to tackle a large chunk or even all of a project at one time, I am dividing it into smaller tasks and completing them one at a time over the course of a week or more.
5. Like with Like. When determining what needs to be done during any given day, I group similar tasks together. For example, I create a call list and e-mail list and then set aside an appropriate amount of time during the day to make my calls and send e-mails.
The bottom line is that the amount of time that we have each week is finite. As there always seems to be an infinite list of tasks/activities that we trying to cram into each week’s schedule, we need to remember to manage the tasks/activities so that there will be a balance between our work and personal lives. If you’re having trouble striking this balance, reach out to you NYC Professional Organizer. I’d be happy to evaluate your schedule and develop personalized systems that work for you!