Are you time poor?
Tick, tick, tick,...boom.
Time.
It’s always ticking.
We will never have this time again.
In recent weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some brilliant senior teams in different organisations and without exception, every one of them has highlighted the pressure that comes from busyness and lack of time.
We are all time poor.
So we think.
Whilst I know I’m not holding a magical cup of tools for people, I do think it’s easy to normalise the daily grind and slip into react and survive mode without knowing it.
Been there. Action versus activity. The curse of a busy fool.
So, here’s 3-time tips to think about as we head into a new week that may help you regain perspective, clarity and control over your own time:
Do a time audit on your diary at the start of each week. How much of your time is spent working on your priorities versus someone else’s agenda? Do you really need to be in all those meetings? Do you know why you are even on the invite list? Some time ago I set myself a boundary of only attending meetings where there was a clear agenda and objective for my attendance. It may only give you a couple of hours back, but you can do a lot - like, give yourself some headspace to think - in a couple of hours.
Time block. Our brains need regular breaks and space to breathe. The culture of “back to backs” and packed-out workdays that we often wear as a badge of honour, status and productivity are actually creating the opposite. If we don’t create space to think and allow our brains to recharge and breathe, we create the perfect conditions for poor decision making, lack of clarity and a reactive state that can result in being mediocre most of the time versus doing a small number of things brilliantly and getting stuff done.
Do, Delegate, Delete, Defer. One of my favourite tools to help us plan and prioritise. Used along with your time audit, consider of all your tasks in the week- what is best use of your time to do, what can you delegate to others, what can you defer and best of all what can you delete. Game changer.