As a time management consultant, I’m often asked what are the top mistakes I see people make. Here are, in no particular order, the first five of my top ten:  

1.Being a slave to your blackberry or cell phone: You know you have become a slave to your blackberry or cell phone when, almost every time it rings or buzzes, you jump and answer it. Cell phones and mobile email systems can be wonderful tools, but only as long as your control them (i.e. you decide when and how you will pick up and answer). Otherwise, they become a phenomenal time waster eating up to several hours a day. A client of mine, just by deciding to check his email every hour instead of every time his blackberry buzzed, reclaimed a full hour of productive time every day.  

2)Working by emergency: Many clients call me for help because they feel overwhelmed, and find that they never have time for what they really want to do. More often than not, it turns out that those clients work by emergencies. In other words, they take care of the things that scream at them the most and forget about the less urgent tasks until they, in turn, become emergencies. The problem is that most emergencies don’t start out as emergencies, they start out as projects or tasks on a to-do list, that got pushed back until something happens to transform them into emergencies. Furthermore, when taken care of before they become emergencies, they often require less time, energy and resources that they do as full-fledged emergencies. Stopping work by emergencies to take care of your projects in a timely manner makes a dramatic difference in your available time – not to mention your stress.  

3)Not sleeping enough: This might sound surprising in a list of time management mistakes list, but the fact is that sleep is critical to making the most of your time. When tired, we all think and do things more slowly, and are much more likely to make mistakes. Studies have actually shown that sleep deprivation has effects very similar to alcohol. It would never occur to us to get drunk on the evening before an important client presentation, yet we don’t think twice about staying up until two or three in the morning to finish the presentation handouts… The result the next morning is not much different, except for the hangover.  

4)Not using a task list, or using an inappropriate one: In my years as time management consultant, I’ve seen everything from no task list at all (“it’s all in my head”) to tasks lists 10 pages long. The sad reality is that most task lists don’t work because they are too long or too short; not prioritized; too complicated; or simply in the wrong format or medium for their user. On the other hand, a well thought-out task list, adapted to your needs and style, is an extraordinarily effective tool to plan, prioritize, save time and increase your effectiveness. Quick example: A client was spending about an hour each day updating their overlong task list, never finishing their priorities. After some simple re-tooling, the update time fell down to less ten minutes, and my client found their effectiveness sky-rocket.  

5)Not taking time to sit back and look at the big picture: No matter your occupation, it is very easy to get caught up in the “doing” of things, and consider thinking time a waste, “because there are so many things to do.” Yet taking a step back on a regular basis to assess the big picture of your life, career, or current project, and taking some time to plan your next steps, before diving back in the daily grind, makes all the difference between being busy (i.e. doing a lot of things) and being effective (i.e doing the things that matter), even on a day-to-day basis.  

In my next post, I’ll share the other top five time management mistakes that most affect your ability to use your time effectively.  

Yours in Daily Mastery,
Karin

I discovered the importance of planning when I learned how to write software in college: when I started, I did what most other students did. I sat down at my computer and started to create the software code… I would write for a while, then find out that I had forgotten to think about a specific case, need to go back to correct something I had written earlier, and so on. When I was finally done writing, it was time to correct all the mistakes I had made –typos, procedures mistakes. You may have heard of them as “bugs.” It was a painstaking process, taking hours and hours and hours!  

Then I learned another way to create software: away from my computer, with a piece of paper, I would start by puzzling out exactly what the software was supposed to do, and how. Then I took each piece of this software and decomposed it in to very small procedures. I wrote each procedure, tested and debugged it (which was very fast, since thy were so short and simple), then go on to the next, and so on until the project was finished, and almost magically, the software was doing exactly what I wanted it to do.  

The amazing part of this process was that I ended up spending much less time creating my software than by just sitting down and “getting to work” immediately: taking the time to think the problem through (i.e. what I wanted my software to do) before diving into the work actually allowed me to save huge amounts of time in the execution of the project, so that I could finish it faster, on time, and without stress.  

What I discovered with software creation can be applied to every project in your life, whether it’s a work project, planning your next vacation or writing a report. My clients usually all have the same reaction when they discover this tool: “This is so amazing!” Over and over again, they name project planning (as this process is officially called) as one of the most time-saving tools they have ever learned. To give you an example, one of my clients, who is a travel buff, used to take at least 30 hours, over the course of two to three weeks, to painstainkingly plan her vacations. After she discovered project planning – or more specifically, since she used it in her work life, that she could use it to everything – her vacation preparation time dropped down to five to six hours only.  

So, what is the process of project planning?  

It is actually quite simple: first, decompose your project in elements that are smaller, more manageable and/or easier to understand. Let’s say you want to plan your vacations, since we just talked about it. Your project is “plan next vacations.” The different components of planning your vacation can be: decide what your budget is; discuss with family to select 2–3 destinations; do online research on destinations; call travel agency for brochures and information on destinations; crunch the numbers to see which itineraries/destinations meet your budget; sit down again to select your destination; etc.  

Once you have all your steps on paper, take some time to look into the foreseeable challenges in making it all happen, such as: what if the family can’t agree on a destination? What if your vacation ends up costing you more than you expected once you are there? Also, identify the places where you are missing information. In the case of your vacation, it’s quite easy, you know that you’re lacking information regarding the different lodging options at your chosen destination(s), for instance, but in other projects the “information holes” might not be as obvious.  

Finally, schedule the different parts of your vacation planning in your calendar, so that you keep having reminders to work on it, and small, manageable tasks that make it easy to work on it. Then just follow the reminders on your calendar as they come up. Your vacation planning will happen without you even thinking, much less stressing about it.  

Yours in Daily Mastery,  

Karin

Have you noticed how, every year, time seems to go by faster? Days feel shorter and the end of the year is there sooner? Time seemed to move much more slowly when we were children, when we had all the time to enjoy our two months of summer, for instance. Nowadays, it feels like summer is passing by so fast that we barely have the time to even notice that it is there before the first leaves fall to the ground.  

Time is constant and linear, physics tells us: every minute is followed by another minute, of the exact same length. So why this feeling that time is shrinking? Is it our imaginations at play?  

This feeling is actually grounded in solid reality and comes from two factors: age, and the culture we live in. If you stop and think about it, the truth is that we have a lot more things to do in particular in the area of chores, errands and responsibilities as adults than we did as children, or even young adults. When you were twenty, you probably were single, receiving a paycheck every two weeks, and your only responsibilities were to make sure that you had food in your stomach, a roof over your head, clothes and a few of the fun things in life. Today, you have a family and a house to take care of instead of just yourself and a small apartment; your present job, whether it’s being a stay at home mom, a manager in Corporate America or having your own business, entails many more duties and responsibilities than the one you had at twenty; and you may even be caring for an elderly parent on top of everything else. No wonder that time seems to zip by!  

Add to this the fact that we work more hours than we have in at least two generations; that we have more entertainment options than ever and are expected to take advantage of them; and you have an explosive combination: too many things to do is too little time. There is nothing left over for the unstructured, goof-off time that made days go by at the leisurely pace you remember from childhood.

So what can you do about it? The solution is to recreate that unstructured, goof-off time in your present life. By clarifying your priorities so that you focus on what really matters, choosing to let go of everything else, free time magically appears and is available for you to do whatever the moment moves you to do… just like you did when you were a child.  

Yours in Daily Mastery,
Karin

PS: If you’re having trouble achieving it, use the services of a time management coach. People hire me not so much to learn how to be more productive or to squeeze yet more things into a day, but to find out how to stop feeling so incredibly harried, overwhelmed and stressed out, and recapture some of that childhood leisurely feeling.

Even though I’ve been married only once, my marriage really is a second time around. Before meeting him, I had a long-term relationship – the kind where everyone, including myself, saw marriage as a formality to make official what was already there. This relationship taught me much, but two things still stand out for me today, that I think apply to everyone and every relationship:  

•It is essential to take care of yourself as an individual, or you risk losing your identity in the relationship.  

•It is just as important to nurture the relationship and make sure that living together doesn’t become routine, and romance is lost.  

You are probably thinking that you know it, or learned the very same lesson with your failed first time. But you meet that second special person, you live together, life gets busy, people around you need your support and help, and one day you realize that you haven’t done something for yourself, or just the two of you, in several months…  

The only foolproof way I know to avoid this is very unromantic and most definitely not spontaneous: schedule romance and time for yourself in your calendar. It however works superbly well.

Take your calendar – yes, right now – and write in (no penciling in, please) regular times for you to do something that reminds you of who you are as a unique, just-you person: indulge in an activity you love; have a girls night out; go to a museum, especially if you are an art lover and your significant other isn’t; walk in nature; take a class in a topic you are interested in, or a new language.

Tonight, sit down with your significant other and decide on a time reserved for just the two of you. Some couples book every Friday night, others reserve a half day a month, because that’s all they can muster. Then use this time to do things together, just the two of you.  

Isn’t it wonderful how simple calendar entries can make such a difference in your life and your relationship the second time around?

The classic way to “start the year on the right foot,” according to all time management experts, is to plan and write down your goals. Just as important for us women who juggle multiple responsibilities and are no longer 20 is to ensure that we have Me Time to take care of ourselves.  

Let’s face it, as we age our energy levels are not quite what they used to be and we don’t recuperate so easily when we push our bodies and minds beyond their limits. On the other hand, we are busier and have more responsibilities than ever. So how do you ensure that you keep your energy as high as possible throughout the year? Beyond sufficient sleep, healthy eating and regular exercise, the single most effective way to ensure that you keep your energy high – and recharge your batteries before they get depleted – is to plan for times to rest, relax and recuperate from any stress or craziness on a regular basis.  

•Every week, set up at least a couple of hours for rest and relaxation, a time where you step away from your family, chores and normal life to do something that recharges your batteries. It can be curl up on a comfy chair and read a book; go to a painting of yoga class; take a walk in the local park or in the countryside; eat lunch with a friend who makes you laugh.  

•Three to four times a year, plan a getaway weekend. If you can actually go away, do so, and go to a relaxing location. For some of you it might be a spa weekend, for others a visit to another city, or spending a weekend in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. If you can’t go away, take the weekend off from all chores, necessities, and from family – send your children to sleepovers for the weekend if you need to.  

The only criteria for those weekly and periodic Me Times are that they have nothing to do with your day-to-day life, work, family obligations, errands, or catching up. They also have to be away from anyone who makes demands on your time, as much as you love them.  Finally, a successful Me Time, whether an hour or a week long, makes you feel refreshed and more energized after the activity than before.  

Schedule those times for the whole year now, even if you take care of the details closer to the date. This way, you won’t be tempted to schedule something else during those times, and you have enough advance notice to arrange the logistics of removing yourself from your daily life, such as finding care for your children or your pet.  Taking the time to do this today will ensure that you never fully deplete your energy, and function at a much higher level than you would without.

With the end of the year (and the beginning of the new one), most of us reflect on the past year and plan what next year will look like. Unfortunately those wonderful plans - both professional and personal - tend to be forgotten by March. Worse, they may not be forgotten, but just don't seem to happen, creating guilt and resentment.

The good news is, it doesn't need to be this way. If you follow some simple rules, you can ensure that your goals happen, and that they happen in a timely manner:

•    Make sure that your goals are aligned with who you are, your priorities and what you want to do. If you get excited just thinking about a goal you wrote down, you have a winner. Otherwise, your goal is unlikely to happen unless you have negative consequences for not making it happen - such as being let go, for instance.

•    Make sure that your goals have a deadline. A goal without a time frame is not a goal, it's a dream.

•    Make sure that your goals are realistic. For instance, make sure that they can be achieved in the time frame you gave yourself, otherwise you are setting yourself up for failure.

•    Make sure that your goals depend on you, not someone else's actions. For instance, if your goal is to lose weight, it's perfect. If your goal is to make your significant other lose weight, you might be in trouble, since the outcome really depends on your significant other, not you.

•    Plan the steps to get to your goals, give deadlines to those steps and write them in your calendar for the year. The key factor to make a goal happen is to decompose it into steps and scheduling those steps. This way, you ensure that your goal will happen, almost in spite of yourself.

Early this year, a client of mine used the rules above to plan his goals for the year. We touched base a couple of weeks ago to take stock of the year, and he told me how "amazed" he was that all his goals had happened, and "without effort or anguish" on his part. It was the first time that it had happened to him as far as he could remember!  You too can have this experience. Just apply those few rules when you sit down to plan next year and determine your goals.