9 things to keep in mind as you go about your day

Tip One: Focus on what you do with your time, not what others do – do not compare! Your mind will never let you win!

Tip Two: Keep a rough diary for a week or minimum of three days to know what you do with your time, and then decide what / where you will change.

Tip Three: Create your own one pager personalised diary to track where you want to / should spend your time each day. Hand write this for a week, then digitise it on computer or device.

Tip Four: Do something every day to take a step towards your imaginable future. EVERY day to take a step, take an action.

Tip Five: Do not reward yourself throughout your day, do not say… ‘after the next task I will reward myself’ and go to the fridge!! Do not reward yourself until the end of the day. ONLY reward yourself if you actually achieve your goals for the day.

Tip Six: Working longer hours does not create productivity; a good balance of sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, exercise, happy activities and striving for something larger than ourselves and mixing in some work creates productivity – schedule in your day journaling, sleep, eating times, meditation, exercise, something to put a smile on your face... THEN work time – with regular breaks.

Tip Seven: Find ways to automate and consolidate! Digital transformation…

Tip Eight: Break your weekly time schedule into problems you are solving for, this quite often alters the tasks and the priorities you give them. Figure out what are your biggest three problems causing you stress or worry, then plan the actions to resolve or mitigate as a priority.

Tip Nine: Only spend 20 minutes maximum a day ‘surfing’ social media. Don’t look at your phone or computer before you are ‘ready’ for the day. Don’t look at your phone or devices for the hour before going to bed.

I have my ups and downs of being at home, I try to be careful of the language I use. I am not ‘stuck at home’, I am ‘safe at home’. I am not ‘floundering and figuring out how to get through a day’ I am ‘flourishing at figuring new and altered ways to find my new comfort’ …

BUT …

what the heck is happening to my time management?

I am saving hours of travel not having to get myself and my daughter to where we need to be each day. But somehow, I seem to have LESS time. Somehow, I have started to fall behind on all my to-do lists.

Before COVID-19 hit I was working part time at the office and part time at home as well as running an on line business as well as winding up a tiny house design and build company, managing a house, a child, a parent who lives independently with us. I was managing it all brilliantly.

When the restrictions began, I was quietly looking forward to having so much extra time on my hands each day, my house will be spotless, our dinner will be extravagant, I will be producing some of my best work and I will still have time leftover to focus on my other ventures. Sure my 6 year old will be home, but my mother lives on the property and she will be able to help with home schooling, besides I will be saving myself an hour a day just from not having to do the school runs and nearly 2.5 hours a day with work travel... there is 3.5 hours saved right there!

Day one, somehow it was lunchtime… I had given up on home schooling for the day (No judgement, I’m sure I am not the only one… being a teacher is tough!), I had half an unloaded dishwasher, I had no idea what we were doing for dinner, and besides from checking some emails I had only done about 10 minutes of work!! Oh, and the house was far from spotless thanks to my 6 year old hurricane getting around the place.

Where did the morning go?? What do I have to show for it?? And about 1pm I started role playing the conversation that was going to occur when my partner got home about how much I had (not) got done in the day!

Ok, Ferne, not the best start, sit down and have some lunch, call in your mum for some ‘Nanna Duties’ then get stuck into it… No distractions! But then the phone rings (I didn’t answer her last call; I’ll have a quick 10 minute chat…who was I kidding? 40mins later I’m back into it). But then the washing machine sings, but I am ignoring it… (or am I? It won’t take long to hang out, and I need time to think through my response to this problem anyway).. And then it is 9:30pm, we had meat and veg for dinner, the house is quiet (but not clean), I am the only one awake, and I will be for the next few hours at least while I get this work done.. And I promise myself that tomorrow I will be more organised, more disciplined, no excuse!! Yet, I continued doing the same thing every day that week.

Clearly what I was doing wasn’t working for me and I had to change my strategy. The truth is I have never been in this situation before, so I needed to come up with a unique approach. Yes, discipline is part of it, but it is not the whole solution. The bottom line is at home we are distracted by our personal to-do lists because everything that we would not give a second thought about in the office is now at our fingertips at home (and there is no shame in wanting to get ahead so there is more time for leisure at the end of the day).

So here is what I realised…

If I start my ‘tasks’ at the time I usually leave for work and finish ‘tasks’ at the time I would arrive home I am giving myself easily an extra two hours of ‘to do’ time.

I spend 5 minutes in the morning creating a list of all my chores and all my tasks for work, and the time that it will take to complete them- rechecking each morning what i need to carry over from the day prior and readjust for the week, or what I did in advance of expectation.

I prioritise tasks and plan the day so I do a task for work – and make sure I do the tasks I don’t like FIRST , followed by a 5 minute ‘break’ where I will do a house chore.

I am working faster to try and keep up with my daily schedule. When things go back to “something different than today” I will continue to beat the clock to do my housework as I now realise I waste way too much time dawdling on mundane tasks that I could do quickly and free up time for myself.  Every time I save 5 minutes I spend that extra 5 min journaling or doing something for ME!

Ferne Eliz King