Does the day just zoom past you without you having anytime for yourself and you end up going to bed tired thinking why a day has only 24 hrs and not more? I always address this question by saying that even the president of the United States has only 24 hours in a day. It does not matter who you are, as long as you manage your time well and it is not Rocket Science we are talking about. I have gone through this journey myself as a result of which, I have come up with my own rules and guidelines which have worked wonderfully for me. I am sure if we look in the same direction it is just a matter of time before you begin to manage your time more efficiently.
Let me take my own life here. I had no time whatsoever to do anything thing. It was a rushed affair every day in the morning. I used to jump from meeting to meeting and most of these too were a rushed affair. I had committed myself to a social responsibility and that took most of my time after work with a series of things to do till late in the night. In midst of this I always wanted to do things which I am doing right now – write about what I am passionate about ,exercise, do yoga or even take some time off in a day to do nothing. Finally I decided to take control and not be more of a driftwood.
I decided that my life is my own. I took time out to decide what I really wanted my life to be like. Then I designed my life and made a series of decisions to get my life to what I wanted it to be.It can be that way for you to the extent that you’re willing to make changes. Even if you just want to free up a little time for a hobby or for doing something relaxing, you can do that. I can guarantee you, that once you see the small forward movements, the momentum will take over and you will be surprised with your own actions. Some of the things which I did to help me manage my own time more efficiently are
Take out some time: This is an incredible powerful you can add in your To do list. You need to create a specific amount of time say about an hour where you will be absolutely not disturbed. With this block of time, take a look at your life with some perspective. Is it what you’ve always wanted? How would you get to where you’ve always wanted to be? What do you enjoy doing, but don’t have enough time to do? What things actually fill up your day? Are there things you could drop or minimize to make more time? Some of my biggest ideas and answers I get is during this time. I usually schedule this in the mornings.
Begin to say No: I know this is difficult. It was a big challenge for me to say No for things which would eat into my time and make me that much less productive. When I began to work on this, I could feel a radical shift in me and now I am so much better at it. Get super protective about your time and say “no” to everything but the essential requests.
Delegate better: I have learnt over the years that the best managers and Leaders can delegate extremely well. Even though I had large teams I always worked on delegating the work and never took up something on myself. If necessary spend a little time training the person to whom you’re delegating the task but that little time spent training will pay off as time saved later. Delegating allows you to focus on the core tasks and projects you should be focusing on. This is the key because you need to be in your best state of mind when manoeuvring through critical stages.
Remove the distractions: All of us in our life have people, things which distract us and makes us lose our focus on our goals. It is very easy to fall prey for distractions unless you work on it. Visual clutter is one thing which distracts me for sure. Ensure all things which are not required are removed from your near vicinity. With respect to people, it depends on who they are. You might want to work on it more diligently. See if you can eliminate as many of these as possible — the more you can focus, the more effective you’ll be and the less time you’ll waste. That equals time saved for the good stuff.
Working and making some time for yourself is the key in self development. I see lesser number of people spending time on themselves. I remember these words from Arthur Lacey “The real problem of leisure time is how to keep others from using yours.”I come across so many people who spend their leisure time doing the most unproductive stuff. if they can just step back, get a grip of things and begin to work on their own improvement be it in their health or mind then they would be doing themselves and people around them a big favour .I would Love to hear from you if you disagree or agree on any points on my Facebook Fan page or Coach@satishrao.in