Turning Ideas into Action: Mastering Time Management Through Writing

I shrank in my seat with embarrassment and shame. I felt like a fraud. My mentor just asked me to teach him how to turn his ideas into actions just like I do because "I'm so good at it." Immediately, the self-doubt kicked in, and that little mocking voice in my head said sarcastically, "Mmmmm are you good at it? You have SO many ideas and projects you haven't finished. You have several bins in your hallway right now from not finishing that selling your clothes online project. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You certainly are not that good at this. And you definitely won't be teaching anyone anything unless you want them to fail and find out how NOT good you are at this too."

There are so many personal projects and entrepreneurial projects I want to get done but I don’t get done because I start them and don’t execute them well. I don't prioritize properly and then the next thing I know I have a bunch of ideas either half-completed or sitting in my queue of things to do. But my mentor doesn't see that. You don’t see that. Up until now, only I knew that.

Yet, at the same time, these failures are lessons I learned and allowed me to bring my best time management skills into the workplace. So I shook off the shame and silenced that voice in my head and realized- actually- yes. I am very good at turning ideas into action; at least I'm better at it than most and thank God I am

The Importance of Time Management in a Complex World

Time management as a skill is so vital to our success as a human being. there are so many competing priorities that are always shifting just within our inner world. "Do I need water right now? Do I have time to eat before this next meeting? I need a coffee. Oh shoot I forgot I have to hang out with Lucy tonight because that’s the only time that we’re both available." As if juggling our inner world wasn't enough we’ve managed to make it even more complicated by adding a 40-hour work week to it making time management an essential skill in being able to get things done just as much as it's an essential skill to our being and survival.

Teaching What Comes Naturally:

As someone who has been rebuilding their self-esteem; when someone compliments me or asks for guidance I don’t take it lightly. It makes me wonder how I even acquired this knowledge, more specifically how I became so good at turning ideas into action. How did I unintentionally develop a skill so desirable? How did I perfect it? How did I make it so natural to me that even I didn’t realize it was such a strength?

You would think that maybe I've practiced a bunch of productivity hacks and spent my time intentionally building on this skill, but the truth is I don't. Well, not in the traditional sense. Because I don't value productivity, I value my time and I value self-expression. I value my intelligence.

So then, how do I do it? I do it by writing.

The Serious Pursuit of Writing

One day in 2007 I was sitting at my desk gripping my number 2 pencil so ferociously as I wrote a graded essay for Mrs. Ficetola, my 5th grade teacher. It was on this day that the pursuit of writing reached out to me and said, "Yes. I choose you," and I chose it back. Ever since then, I've taken my writing very seriously.

It’s the writing process that has helped me become so excellent with my time.

Crafting Excellence: The Writing Process

I chose to pursue a writing adjacent degree, so my education required me to regularly write 10-page paper assignments with very tight deadlines and very specific deliverables based on a rubric. At this time I was a full-time student, I had a part-time job and I was very active and involved on campus. I had a lot of responsibilities to juggle, but writing was always a priority for me.

With these tight deadlines and various priorities, I had to come up with a repeatable process that worked for me one, get my ideas out on paper, two, make it legible with a beginning, middle, and an end, three, include the deliverables and four, be actionable all within the timeframe that I had allotted for getting the assignment done.

My Three-Draft Writing Process

Every single actionable process I create is on the foundation of having a beginning, middle, and end.

First draft: Brainstorming and idea generation (the beginning of my writing process)

Second draft: Detailed refinement based on rubric requirements (the middle of my writing process)

Third draft: Final grammatical editing with Grammarly and organization (the end of my writing process)

I follow this same process with any idea I have. I write down all of my thoughts (beginning) then I detail those thoughts and ideas and make them relevant (middle) then I iron out the details and decide on what's realistic and what's not (end).

Using Writing as a Catalyst for Idea Execution and Time Management

So getting your thoughts out on paper and then organizing your thoughts into a beginning, middle end, and then sending those thoughts out to someone else is the premise of how I can be so great at time management and just executing ideas

So if I were to advise anyone interested in being better at executing and having the confidence to get something done in a timely manner while juggling the millions of responsibilities that we have as human beings, I would recommend to start writing.

I write The Mindful Muse Reflections; if you're interested in content about how to live more mindfully and enjoy reading personal essays check it out here.