Winston Churchill said, “Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” I’m not the expert on time management but between managing career, relationships, canine companion, and work-life balance, managing time becomes vehemently important.
I overload myself at times, stretching myself so thin that I start making major mistakes, grow exhausted, and eventually burn out. My partner often jokes that I try to save the world, and it’s true, but not to the detriment of my relationships or myself. I believe in following your passions, but with intelligence not with destruction to oneself. Let me be more specific.
In one day I can be a Parent Liaison at an elementary school; personal coach for my life coaching company, rundeep; voice tracker for a radio station; chair of a sponsorship committee for an international association; networker for my career; tutor for a sixth grader; blog writer for Life Goals Mag; local coordinator for an international exchange program; partner; daughter; sister. Time management is an art of multi-tasking demanding priorities and people.
I tend to jump into tasks quickly and curiously. I’ve mostly figured out what works for me. This isn’t without previously crashing and burning multiple times. I’d love to share how I’ve been able to handle all of these roles and tasks in one day, often at the same time. My goal is to professionally grow while making a meaningful impact on the most in need.
The following steps help me manage a busy schedule to meet my goals.
Face your fears
Write them down and be intentional about confronting them. If you’re fearful of failing, fail. If you’re fearful of drowning, learn to swim. I’m terrified of drowning and now internationally certified to sail a 20-27 feet keelboat. It’s frees you from making future cloudy decisions. Without fear, you’re making decisions purely from self-love, not from a place of fear.
Make intentional decisions to reflect your life goals and passions, and take risks
I was living in a beautiful, but expensive area for years. My finances were tight, I was struggling to see a future in my current job, and a couple family members were very sick 2,500 miles away. I was able to enjoy running, hiking, and bike riding nearly every day. The location fit my progressive value system perfectly.
After a year of contemplating relocating to my hometown, I decided it would support my personal, financial, and professional goals to relocate. I spend more time with my family, work in a fulfilling position, find alternative ways of running, hiking, and biking, and save more money to travel instead of spending it on rent each month.
Take stock of where you’re feeling stressed in your life, and ask yourself where you can decide to make intentional changes to support your life goals and passions.
Realize you’re not invincible
You can’t do it all and if you try, you’ll burn out. Believe me, I’ve done it. Say no to the tasks that don’t serve your ultimate life goals and passions. We have been taught the more you do, the better, but whatever you’re doing that isn’t truly supporting your life goals and passions is draining your energy.
Find the tasks that provide you with meaningful substance, instead of focusing on the tasks you think will get you “ahead.” Write down the tasks that make you feel energized and make you feel drained; cut down or cut out those draining tasks.
Put these steps into practice for thirty days and see if your time is well spent doing the things that energize you, and help you accomplish your financial, personal, and professional goals.
As a life coach I walk you through bigger picture steps to help you see that sometimes underneath your time management struggle is fear, lack of direction in financial, personal, and professional areas, and deciding to listen to the ego convincing us we need to do it all.
Consider hiring a life coach to help you better manage your time. Sometimes we need a different perspective in order to pull us out of our mindsets that aren’t working for us. Accountability motivates us to prove to ourselves that we can succeed at accomplishing the toughest task of all, managing our time.
I challenge you to put these steps into practice for thirty days and log your journey. I hope you discover freedom, energy, self-love versus ego, resulting in enjoyable and efficient management of your time.
