Time Management - An Accidental Guide

A professor filled a jar to the top with large rocks. He asked his class if it was full and they agreed that it was. He then poured small pebbles that fell into the spaces between the larger rocks until it could not hold more. Once again, he asked if the jar was full and they said that it was. Not yet finished, the professor poured another jars' contents and this time it was sand. Of course, the smallest of spaces were filled until the jar could truly hold nothing more.

As the story goes it is explained that the large rocks represent the things that truly matter in life such as family, relationships, health... the things most important to us. The smaller pebbles are of substance but not as important and the sand is the rest, the small details in everyday life. And this professor illustrates how we ought to live according to this; if we first fill the jar with sand and pebbles there will be little space for the most important things.

This is a well known story and my using it again probably means it should be put to bed, but this is how I was feeling recently. Like I've been racing to keep up with everything and scrambling not to neglect things that I know matter more. Sound familiar?

I'm convinced that some of the most awesome people ever are in my network so I floated the question out on LinkedIn; how do you manage time? Within a few days over 13,000 people had viewed my post and I had responses and pro-tips from 6 continents. Clearly, I'm not the only one who feels like I'm struggling here so I thought I'd share some of the insights that have already helped me, broken down into 4 basic concepts. But first I need to acknowledge Sarah-Joy Kallos and Jeff Miller for providing me the nudge to write this!

Not Everything is Worth the Time - so PRIORITIZE!!!

Let's face it, if you're anything like me you often find yourself an hour from lunch wondering "what the hell have I even done so far today?" It happens easily. After a few returned emails and calls, one of way too many meetings, an unexpected "emergency," and being cornered by the time sucking BLAH BLAH BLAH guy while you just wanted a refill on your coffee FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!! ...Your day's half gone and you haven't even started on the important stuff. Not all of this can be avoided so what can we to do at least help this?

1) I like Time Blocks and they can work. But Trey Milner helped me see that if I use them more effectively and leave some room for flexibility in my day, I can put stronger boundaries around that time and knock out the more important things.

2) As my man Michael Spence suggests; identify the things that have the highest ROI and make those things your "have to be done" things.

3) Piyush Rahate uses the 4-D Model which he puts into quantrants and uses as a tool to decide which tasks he can "Do, Delay, Delegate, and Drop." I have never used this method for personal schedules but I have used a similar model as a tool for guiding senior leadership meetings and keeping seperate teams and departments aligned and have had great results! Don't know why it never occured to me to use this for myself!

I really agree with Marcus Aurelius Anderson's statement; "when the big priorities are handled, the smaller things handle themselves."

DO LESS!!!

Sarah Elkins and Jeffrey Davidson cut right to the chase here...

1) Reduce non-essential activities

2) Make sure my list is mine and not someone else's

Any questions?

JUST SAY NO!!!

Natalia Wiechowski is one of my faves! And she jumped right into the commentary with some great insight that saying no sometimes is a key component to getting stuff done!

1) Check out her article on this here!

2) Part of saying no is a little more subtle and it's about eliminating distractions. Natasha Kirby commented on how she does simple things like changing her phone settings when she needs to focus. Pro-tips like that work and it made me think of flying. I don't mind talking to people next to me when I fly but usually I do plan to get some work done in transit so at some point I really just need to not be bothered, so what do I do? I put on headphones... done. However we do it, eliminating distractions is part of not allowing our time to be taken away.

GET ORGANIZED!!!

There were so many good and useful comments on this that it's just not readable for me to credit everyone who contributed here so I'm going to hit the highlights...

1) Use Systems. Whether it's an old school Franklin Covey planner that sentimental people like me cling to, Microsoft Outlook, or as simple as a "kill list," phone alerts, and a sticky notes app; there are thousands of resources so do some homework and use the ones that work best for you (and don't pick too many or you're adding to the problem instead of fixing it)!

2) Create helpful Habits. I got a lot of comments about getting up early and having uniterrupted time to do the most important things first as well as planning and review at the beginning or end of the day (or both). This many people can't be wrong so I think part of the answer is establishing routines and behaviors that help us be more productive.

3) Make yourself Accountable. Seriously, I don't like to admit failure; do you? If we know someone is going to ask us how we did on a commitment the odds are just better that we're going to make sure it gets done.

Michael Horwitz put a nice ribbon on the end of the conversation by saying,

The first thing we need to remember is that we don't manage time, we manage our orientation to it. It's a habit.

As with anything, I think we'll find ourselves pulled into action any time a big enough "why" lies behind our reasons. For me it goes back to the jar... most days I'm filling in pebbles and sand and by the time I try to get the big rocks put in there the jar's too full. Really it is about managing our life and deciding the important things really are important so I'm thankful for this unintented lesson from my LinkedIn family and I hope you find their insight helpful too! Huge thanks to everyone who commented!

I look forward to hearing thoughts, feedback, and more ideas on the subject or anything else you'd like to share so please feel free to reach out and connect. Always welcome!