5 Tips to Create Time
for What Matters

1. Get Your Priorities Straight

Most of us have one clear priority—get through the day. Sure, no one will deny the importance of that, but it’s simply not enough. Most of us rarely stop long enough to consider how we spend our time and energy. Yet, without determining whether your priorities match your picture of yourself and your values you will continually be out of synch with yourself.

At the heart of making the most of life today is the ability to treasure and protect your connections to what you care most about, people, places, activities, pets, those things that are dear to you.

Unless you consciously and deliberately preserve time to connect with what matters most to you, your connections will erode.

What You Can Do

The first step in creating more time for what matters is to spend as little as five minutes a day considering how you choose to spend your time. Most of us are driven by what we think we have to do. We are slaves to our to do lists. Yet in order to live your best life you have to take control of your time and decide what it is you choose to do.

Before you write down any other plans or think about your schedule decide the single most important thing you can do that day for your family, for yourself and for your work. List one “choose-to-do” in each of these areas before you list any have-to-do’s.

The solution to creating a life you love is selectivity--it’s about choosing. It’s not about getting more done, but being more selective about what you do. Remember choose quality rather than quantity.

2. Set Limits

Many of us say “yes” when you want to say “no.” Do you say, “yes” because you feel guilty if you turn someone down? Are you concerned with what they’ll think of you? Do you say “yes because you don’t want to disappoint the other person, but who do you end up disappointing over and over again? Yourself.

We waste so much of our precious time and energy trying to prove ourselves and please other people.

Yet highly successful people say no all the time-to projects, to crazy deadlines, to questionable priorities, and to other people’s crises. In fact they view the decision to say no as equally acceptable as saying yes.

What You Can Do

Most of us pressure ourselves to give an immediate response when asked a question. But if truth be told, very few things require an immediate answer. Why not say, “let me get back to you,” and take the time you need to decide if this is really right for you or if you’re being seduced by the 'I can do it all' syndrome?"

If someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do you can simply say, Thanks for asking, but that’s just not going to work for me.

We have to be willing to say “no” to certain things in order to make room to say “yes” to others. Saying “no” is a way of caring for and honoring your authentic self. It’s a way to keep in touch with what’s most essential in your life.

Put do not disturb sign on your door if you are working on a project and need uninterrupted time. Just don’t keep your door open to everyone.

3. Have Realistic Expectations

Set limits on what you commit to and reserve time for what maters most to you. If you feel guilty that you’re not serving others when you are attending to your priorities, remind yourself that you would be much less use to others if you didn’t do what’s important to you at least some of the time. You’d become depressed, frazzled, impatient, resentful and inefficient. Not a pretty picture!

Don’t’ by into the belief that you should do everything you’re asked to do or could do. The truth is you can only do what you can do. And you will do what you can do more effectively if you’re not frantically squeezing in more than what’s reasonable. Remember, you have to have realistic expectations.

What You Can Do

Make an “I Won’t Do” list and then make a Policy List.

For Example, make a policy that you will only serve on one volunteer committee at a time. Or you can make it a policy that you will take on only a certain number of projects or customers at one time. Don’t take calls during dinner or while on vacation or at the gym. Set a regular time to call your mother so you don’t feel guilty the rest of the time and so that she can depend on your call. Develop a system for dealing with demands on your time that come up regularly so you don’t have to decide on the spot each time.

Accept the fact that you can’t do everything for everyone or even do as much for others as you might like to do.

4. Eliminate Time and Energy Suckers

Have you ever counted the number of messages you get in a day, including email, voice mail or messages others take for you or that you leave? We allow ourselves to feel obligated to respond to all of these demands and as a result we’re worn out. We have to be selective.

We have to choose what information we’re going to take in from the endless number of TV shows, to internet blogs, to radio and magazines, books, etc. We have to be more selective than people have ever had to be. We have to regulate what we’re going to respond to, what we’re going to take in and how much time we’re going to devote to these activities or we’ll be consumed by them.

What You Can Do

Eliminate projects and people that drain you while cultivating those that recharge you.
No one needs to read three newspapers, every day, check email every 15 minutes, make scores of phone calls every day. These are habits that many of us fall into because they make us feel important and charged up as if doing a lot of things fast puts us on the cutting edge of life. But what price do we pay?

We spend too much time on what I call “Junk Time.” This is the equivalent of Fritos or marshmallows. This is the time we waste on activities before we get to the main task, leaving little room for it.

For example, a person can sit down at his computer fully intending to compose the important memo that needs to be sent out soon. When the computer boots up instead of going straight to the word processing program he checks his email and ends up spending 45 minutes. Email is a classic consumer of junk time. Other dangerous consumers of time include your cell phone, instant messaging, newspapers, magazines, TV, Blackberries, or colleagues who stick their head in your door to say, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but…”

5. Reduce Multitasking

There is a myth that you can get more accomplished by doing several things at once. But think about what happens when you’re driving and you get lost. What’s the first thing you do? You turn off the radio so that you can focus all your attention on finding your way. Or think about playing tennis. You hit the ball and you immediately get ready for the next shot. You’re focus is single-mindedly on the ball. The better player you are the more focused you become. Now imaging that you’re playing with two balls. You have to keep track of both, running each down, watching your opponent do the same and frantically try to keep two balls in play at once. There’s no way your game with two balls will be as good as if you just play with one.

Multitasking is like playing tennis with two balls, or three or four for that matter. When you do more than one thing at a time you can’t fully engage. It may be necessary to multitask like talking on the phone while answering an email, but you won’t be doing those tasks as effectively as if you did one at a time.

Have you ever had the experience of talking on the phone with someone and all of a sudden it feels like they’ve disappeared. Most likely they’re multitasking. It’s not very satisfying to either you or the other person.

Some times none of your tasks require your full attention. In this case it’s fine to multitask, but when deep work is required you need to devote your full attention.
But when you jump to a second task rather than wrestle with a difficult task by the end of the day you probably have done a lot of mediocre work and it’s not very satisfying.

What You Can Do

Make time during the day when you focus on one specific task. Give ityour full, undivided attention and you will experience a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that rarely comes when multitasking.

Maximize Your High Energy Periods. There is a time of day when you are mentally at your freshest, most able to concentrate and think clearly. This is your peak energy period. For most people this is the morning, but for my friend Celeste she works best in the middle of the night. Figure out when your peak time is. It’s important to know when your energy peak comes and to make sure you use this time to your full advantage doing your most important and demanding work during this time.

Learn how you can have a balanced life
and create a life you will love!