If You Don’t Have Time to Write it Down…

It seems every day I am hearing the same lines more and more.  “I don’t have time, or I’m running really hard right now” for those of you that know me in 3D form, you’re knowing that those very words are being heard from my mouth and heart entirely too often. How about yours?  In fact, one of the joys of being a strategist is that you can see those things clearly when OTHERS do it…but its relatively hidden from view or hearing when it is in your own life. Care to follow me while I work on the plank in my own eye?

Entrepreneurs must learn time management.  Time management is essential if anyone is to accomplish anything worthwhile. We all have an even playing field on hours in the day.  Now if you’ve muddied up your days like I have with precious hearts and people we warmly call family, then you’ve got another reason to master this lesson.  Are you ready? You’ll have to imagine my glasses down on my nose and my best impression of a mature strategist with a calm voice working 1:1 with you….are you ready?

If you don’t have time to write down what you’re doing…even in short hand…you probably don’t have time to do it all. How many times do you personally misjudge what you could get done in a day…or in my clients and my own case…what you might consider to be “enough” for one day?

I had to laugh when I first got my copy of a client’s new planner system.  She had created 27 things to do on the left hand column but only one line per hour on the schedule system.  This particular planner is such a well done thing, but I had to laugh, for most of the clients I work with break down their hours into 10 minute swatches.  10 minutes moment.  Can you say they intend to get SIX calls, SIX items,  SIX things done every hour of a 12-14 hour day. Uh hum….on a eight day a week schedule no less. (they don’t seem to recognize the work week could be 6 days a week, or even 5, and horror of horrors…4 10 hour days.   Shall we say that is the recipe for a little forced vacation we call BREAKDOWN?  Our health, our emotional health, families or our businesses will break with that kind of 24/7 “on” time. That doesn’t sound like success to me at any profit level.

In my work with very smart folks, one of the first things we work with is time management and level of tasks versus level of enjoyment.  You see, if you are doing things you don’t do well, don’t enjoy, and don’t feel successful when you do them. I won’t even point out that you don’t do nearly as good a job as one who loves the tasks before them. There are other ways to get those tasks paid for so someone else has the chance to use their gifts.  It’s selfish to try to be all for everyone…and it usually is expensive…to you and to them.

The very act of writing down what you routinely do in a day for 3 days will probably help you get on the path to recognizing shortcuts and systems that could save you time and money, we won’t even talk about the frustration you will end in your life.  How about doing what Time Management Allyson Lewis suggests and keeping a few pages of simply things that need doing someday, so you can download the stress that carrying them in your head costs you?   The simple act of taking the time and discipline to acknowledge that time is limited and there is more to life than pushing hard in business every moment is the first step in becoming more successful. Study after study shows that leadership requires a balance of work and play.  It may not work out neatly in piles of 1 hour here or 1 hour there, but with awareness, one can chisel the life one wishes to live! Isn’t that the point?  A paycheck matters greatly to most folks, but what about paychecks of a life well lived, children well loved, spouses and friends well appreciated and fellowship? They matter to my clients, and they matter to me.  Too often we operate on a system of “what they are doing” not what works for us…can I hear an AMEN?

As my friend and systems strategist Sarah L Cook would say, there are many more enjoyable things than being over wrought with too much to do!  Today my challenge to you is to begin the process just for today to write down what it is you do in a day.  Go on, just try, you don’t have to write the encyclopedia of what that is..just the cliff notes version…short hand even…but let’s be honest about how much we’re doing what we do.  It may even turn out that you can make wiser choices on routes and outcomes so that YOU are the one who has more time for YOU!

After all…basics matter…for your success as a person and as an entrepreneur too!  The definitions you  of success you put into play in all areas of your life very often lead to the results you achieve.  Let’s take time to write down what it is we’re doing with our time, so we can make sure there’s time for the people and activities we treasure too!

~Sweetie