“I am definitely going to take a course in time management . . . just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.”
We receive a gift each day with 1,440 minutes (aka 24 hours).
What do you do with your time?
Do you have enough time to work, play and relax?
Do you desire more time with friends, family or self?
Do you feel like your time is being wasted?
Do you find it challenging to manage your time?
There are many ways to manage our time. One possibility is to organize using time blocks or containers. Time has a daily repeating pattern. Within that pattern, we need time to work, play, and restore. We each desire a different combination of the amount of time needed, how we define our various areas of priorities.
Set aside time to define your priorities. Think about:
What’s most important to you?
What are the different areas of life or “containers” that your time will get organized into?
Which containers will be larger?
Which will be smaller?
What combination of containers is right for you?
Once your priorities are clear:
Choose your container sizes.
Choose how to fill them.
Arrange them in ways that best align with your priorities.
What if you introduced color-coding for your containers or time blocks to enhance visual understanding of where your time is going?
Color isn’t useful for everyone, but if you’re a visual processor like I am, it can work well. For my time blocks, I use purple for business, turquoise for personal, green for professional associations, and pink for kids. Within a given week, at a glance I can see what my time looks like with the big color blocks or containers and whether I’m in alignment with my priorities.
What do you do with your time? How do you organize it? I’d love to learn what works and doesn’t work for you? Come join the conversation.
