Time Management (from a non believer)

At the Bauer Academy we work with a lot of professionals, both internally and externally, and one thing that comes back time and time again through our programmes is the issue of time management. Everyone seems to be constantly struggling to manage their time, they lament about not having enough of it, there’s too much to do and never time to get around to the big picture or truly important things.  Making way for learning can be hard when they struggle with the basics of their job roles as it is.

No-one I’ve come across has found the secret solution to solving this mystery, despite the hundreds of books, podcasts, articles and gurus that all promise the answers (believe me, I’ve read / watched / listened to loads).  It’s an epidemic that is getting worse instead of better. And yet we’ve all got the same amount of time granted to us each day. How come some people seem to be so much more productive than the rest of us?

Hands up disclaimer from me before we really get into this – I don’t have a secret solution for you, just an experience to share. In fact, I don’t really believe in ‘time management’. I work for what is essentially a start-up within a larger organisation and every day is like walking through a wind tunnel and coming out the other side feeling dazed and confused (and either exhilarated or exhausted!).  But I’ve found some things that have really helped me, things that have brought me back from the brink of burnout and changed the way I do things. So, given how much it comes up from the people we work with, I thought it was worth sharing.

 Time can’t be ‘managed’ 

 I’ve been something of a ‘self improvement’ junkie for a couple of years now. I’m sure it’s the early onset of a midlife crisis but it’s been an interesting journey where I’ve read through books (and listened to many podcasts) on motivation, productivity, time management and more. In that time, I’ve tried and tested many methods, holy grails that promise to magically change my life, simple tips to make managing emails a breeze and giving me control of my calendar and my days in ways that you can only dream of.

 My conclusion through all of this is that time can’t be managed. My personal workload can’t be tamed into something that resembles order (inbox zero was such a tempting idea but absolutely bombed for me). And the constant wrestle with these things just causes more stress. This realisation has been helpful, so much so that we have flipped it on its head, framed it as a positive and made it part of our company culture code - ‘Embrace the chaos!’

 But the quest for something that makes things easier never really disappears. I’ve been through so much trial and error that I have found a series of things that do actually help me. It’s still not where I’d like it to be but hey, I’m embracing the chaos and remaining optimistic that I can add things that help ease the load to my tool box as I go.

 What changed

 There are a few things that really helped to shape my mind when it comes to time management and productivity. I encourage you to try out things and find your own path, tips & tricks that work specifically for you as one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to this stuff. There is no secret ’meaning of life’ style cure for how much pressure we have on our time. Sorry to burst that bubble if you’re still clinging to the life raft hoping to find it somewhere. This is just what has worked for me and hopefully it will be somewhat helpful to you.

The first thing that really shifted my thinking was the book ‘168 hours (you have more time than you think)’ by Laura Vanderkam. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think much the first time I read it, it was interesting, but I consumed and moved onto the next book. Then months later I ended up re-reading it and somehow a huge penny just dropped. I don’t know if it was right time/place, maybe I was more mature in my journey on the pursuit of things that would help, I’m not sure what it was but that second time round I had a huge eureka moment and it completely changed the way I perceive time.

 Insight 1 – You Do Have More Time than You Think

I always found the phrase ‘time poor’ an odd one, it didn’t sit on the tongue well, like an unfinished thought. But as I get older I realise that there’s something to that phrase. We’re poor with how we spend our time. Our perception of what time is and how we’re spending it is poor – we underestimate how much time we actually have and overestimate how much time we spend on things.

My biggest learning from ‘168 Hours’ is that we must be intentional with our time. It’s as simple as that. We choose how we want to spend most of it. I know it’s easier said than done but think of it this way, we all have the same amount of time to ‘spend’. How are some people so much more successful with their time than the rest of us? They are mindful and intentional about how they choose to spend it.

I have a 3 year old so very often my best laid plans are completely and regularly kyboshed by him and his demands. It’s easy to throw in the towel and give up on your original plans at those moments. But give yourself a break, analyse what’s happened, what you can control and what you can’t, then explore your other options.  We have more control over more of our time than we think we do, when you start becoming aware of that it’s something of a revelation

In the evenings, how long do you spend on social media, or watching tv? Neither of these things are bad, we all need down time, we can’t be filling every hour with stuff and TV isn’t the devil. But you can’t say you have no time to do something else (new hobby, training, reading, creating something etc) if you spend hours on end every week watching tv. 

The real crux is that you choose how you prioritise things in your life. The latest Netflix series is more important than that other thing that you’d love to do (someday when you’ve got the time). Don’t get defensive about it, it’s true.  I guarantee you have more time than you think. It might not be much but track it for a while, catch and analyse yourself in those moments where time seems to get sucked into a vacuum and suddenly it’s bedtime and you’ve done nothing but refresh your social feeds multiple times. Sound familiar?

Insight 2 – Get Deep

The second book that transformed my thinking (though I’ll be honest, I’ve still to find a way to properly embed it into my own workload) is ‘Deep Work’ by Cal Newport. The main thing I took away was that most of us (myself included more often than I’d like) spend our days at work essentially pushing around information when we should be getting more focussed and working on better quality, bigger picture things that will transform our careers and the world, rather than a constant state of ‘shallow’ work which is just answering emails, queries, moving information from one place to another and brings no real value to anyone.

I am a huge fan of deep work. I think I was absolutely born to do nothing but deep work. I love nothing more than time getting my teeth sunk into something, whether it’s creating lesson plans, mapping out projects, coming up with creative solutions. But in my role, especially as the Academy is breaking new ground and innovating constantly, there is a high level of having to respond quickly to the unexpected and dealing with new challenges every day which can take me away from the deeper stuff that gets me in my state of flow.

I’m constantly trying to find ways to work towards doing much more deep work but in this digital age where we’re constantly plugged in and available, it’s something of a work in progress at the moment.

So what can you try?

It’s probably easiest for me to summarise exactly what has worked for me and let you try things out for size, see what works for you and dismiss what doesn’t.

• Be intentional – genuinely, if I was only allowed to give one tip it would be this. Carve out time for the important stuff. Be clear on what you want to do and when.   Don’t let hours disappear through your hands like sand. Want to chill out and watch tv? Great! Do it with intention, don’t just flick through the channels listlessly for hours. Want a productive day?  Don’t open your emails first thing and get sucked in by the tide, set the course of your day yourself. What’s the most important thing you can do?  
• Prioritse – what is most important to you (personally and/or professionally)? What do you want to do? What do you say you never have time for? Really get under the skin of it and be clear on what it is you want to be doing then start your days/weeks etc with that at the front of your mind. Everything else can bend around that rather than the other way around. Sure, fires need to be fought but if you don’t make any time, no matter how small, for more strategic and bigger picture stuff then you’re just continually creating the fires to fight in future. Get your priorities straight.
• Start small and stay focussed – it’s easy to think you can do loads when you start to look at your time differently but start by concentrating on just one or two things you want to achieve and focus on those. Trust me. I’m less than a year into this journey and I’m still over ambitious with what I can actually do. One or two things get done if you give them real focus. As Frasier Crane once remarked (and I’m paraphrasing here) ‘Like a good camembert, I’m at my best if not spread too thin’. Once you start to see results and things changing then add more but done overwhelm yourself at the start. It takes time and practice to change habits. On that, a good thing to keep in mind daily is to pick one important thing – just one – that you want to get through and do it first or as early as possible.
• Block time – This is the second biggest thing to have had an impact on me, alongside being intentional (they go hand in hand really). To do lists never get done. Instead, block your time and schedule what you can in advance (leaving plenty wriggle room for the unexpected).   Whether it’s a paper calendar, outlook, or on your phone, set your week out and schedule in the important stuff. Approaching your week like this makes it more likely that the important and big picture things are being allocated sufficient – or at the very least, ANY – time in your week.

My week never works out 100% as planned but since approaching things this way the difference I’ve seen has been really noticeable. Things that sat stagnant are moving forward. I have more direction. Don’t be a slave to the schedule but use it to guide you and remind you of what you need to prioritise. And don’t sweat it if it goes astray at times. Don’t give in, guide yourself back and try again.  

•  Remove distractions – How many times a day do you get distracted? I’ve read that it takes us on average 19 minutes to get back into our ‘flow’ after being distracted. We can do lots of things to reduce the likelihood of distractions. Get rid of notifications on your phone, get rid of the email pop up in the corner of your screen and the little noise notification, in fact when you’re doing deep work, switch emails off all together so there is nothing swaying you away from focus. Switch your phone off, go somewhere else, get inspired. You don’t need to go AWOL from your team for days but think of it this way - if you had a 1-2 hour meeting with a client or your manager would anyone bat an eyelid? Would you answer calls during that meeting? No, and yet we feel guilty taking the same short amount of time to get away and concentrate on the important stuff for an hour or so. It’s crazy! Also (and one for a blog post all of its own), re-evaluate meetings – do you need to be at all of the ones you’re invited to? Is it the best use of your time? If you do need to have them, could you make them more effective?
• Go dark.  a follow on from above, when you want to get something done and you’ve carved time, take yourself away physically. In the Academy we call it going ‘dark’. Go to a coffee shop, work from home, disappear from anyone who can interrupt you. Switch everything off. It’s like taking a work retreat to focus on a really important thing. We don’t do it often but there are definitely times when it’s a necessity. Heads down, thumbs up, job done.
• Track your time. I did this very loosely, but it was still helpful to have raised awareness of where my time actually goes (rather than where I think it goes). Even if it’s just for a week or two, write down how you’re spending your time and what on.  Be brutally realistic about it (don’t call it work if you’re really spending time on social media) and you’ll be surprised and how much slippage there is. You’ll also see patterns as well as things that are set in stone that have to be worked around. Once you start to understand your time it’s easier to decide and be more intentional about how you want to spend it. It also helps with your work – what would your boss say if you went to them and showed that 80% of your time is spent on menial tasks when you could be spending more time productively on other things?

So there you have it. I could talk for hours on this subject and I’m sure there will be more posts to come in future as, like I said earlier, the quest for new ways of thinking and working is never ending but if you try some of the things I’ve suggested here, have a play around with them, find out what works for you and what doesn’t, I’m positive you can get into a much happier space where you’re starting to do more of the stuff that you care about and that advances you, rather than just fighting fires and answering emails.  The whole work / life thing is also a big one for me (and another post for another time) but I’ve found that is a lot easier to manage since making small adjustments to how I approach time.

Let me know what works for you, I’m always interested in hearing how others get around the old cliché of time management and always on the look out for new things to add to my toolbox.

A couple of recommended resources:

168 Hours – You Have More Time Than You Think – Laura Vanderkam

Deep Work – Cal Newport

The One Thing – Gary Keller