Nothing frustrates me more than wasted time. You can always make more money or buy more things, but you can never acquire more time. That’s why it’s the thing I value most. I remember when I was younger how frustrated I would get at myself for wasting a whole day or not getting things done while the list just got longer.
People used to say to me, “it’ll all work out in the end”, and I guess it did but not necessarily in my favor. Life didn’t really care about my needs, and I realized I was the only one who could make my world how I wanted it. Thus began my lists.
We’ve all had lists in our lives: shopping lists, to do lists, movie lists. The down side of lists is that I find the better I am at maintaining them, the faster they grow. One of the biggest breaks I had in my time management was not in prioritizing my tasks but by dividing them into categories.
With a prioritized list, you will spend your life only addressing things that are urgent and never get to the things you want to do but have little importance. That’s where I realized my mistake. The little things I never got to were important; maybe not to others but for my own personal well being. So I categorized.
Administrative tasks included things like making appointments or replacing a light bulb, Personal tasks included things like reading or organizing my photos, Recurring tasks included things like grocery shopping or laundry, and Social tasks included things like time with friends or chatting online.
I determined to spend an equal amount of time on each of these categories daily so that I could do what I had to do as well as what I wanted to do. To motivate me to do the “have to” tasks, I sandwiched them between the “want to” tasks.
It would look something like this: At 9;00am, I would work off of my Administrative tasks (have to); at 9:20am, I would work off of my Personal tasks (want to); at 9:40am, I would work off my Recurring tasks (have to), and at 10:00am, I would work on my Social tasks (want to).
The important thing about this rotation is two fold: One: you’re never stuck working too long on something you don’t want to do; Two: you make time for the things you really enjoy doing. To me the key to this success is the motivation to minimize less desirable things and include more desirable things on a daily basis.
It’s not necessary to use 20 minute intervals. I just find that it’s the best average for the things I do. If I don’t accomplish something in 20 minutes, I can come back to it later knowing I have put a reasonable dent in it. I set a timer on my computer, and I make sure I stick to it, +/- a couple minutes, but I always give the next task the full amount of time.
I use a free task manager called Toodledo because it syncs with my phone and computer, and you can create your own folders and categories. I even keep all of my book lists, movie lists, and recipes there. That way everything is in one place, and I can always access it. Do you know how sweet it is to be able to look up an ingredient list at the store, even though I hadn’t planned to go shopping?
It’s these little things that allow you to feel that you have control of your life and not the other way around. I remember telling a therapist once about my life, and she responded, “wow, you’re the opposite of depressed.” Good time management allows you the time to escape from beneath an endless pile of tasks and be happy with your well balanced life of personal achievements.