Image by Intersection Consulting via Flickr
Ah time management. Possibly one of the biggest challenges every single one of us faces on this earth.
Do you want to know the reason why we always feel that 24 hours in a day is not enough and that we should be getting more done even if we’re working silly hours to try and do it all?
We do not have a realistic expectation of the time we have available vs. the time our work will take.
It’s as simple as being realistic and repeating after me:
“I cannot `manage’ Time because Time is its own entity that keeps on ticking. I can however acknowledge that I have less time to do the work I need and in doing so I will start to work with time to achieve my best results.”
Did you say that out loud? Do you mean it? I hope so. Once you take on the mindset that time is going to go on without you and you can’t claim it back, you will value it even more.
I could stop this article here with this simple yet powerful lesson, but I won’t.
You need proof, don’t you. You’re not yet set to believe that we really can’t achieve everything we think we can in the time we have available – even if we choose not to sleep.
The 74 Hour Work Week
Reading through Chris Guillebeau’s book, The Art of NonConformity, I loved his musings on how many hours we have available to us. There are 168 hours in a working week, but if you subtract sleep and a Sunday of rest, you’re really left with 74 hours.
Break that down into your working week and it looks like this:
5 day work week: 15.6 hours per day
6 day work week: 13 hours per day
And no I’m not condoning a 7 day work week because that’s just plain silly, hence why it’s already taken out above.
You need at least a 12 hour period of rest, relaxation and disconnecting. I wrote about the benefits of that over on Awake at the Wheel.
Now the above looks pretty decent, you think, hell I have oodles of time in a day – so where does it all go then?
Well you haven’t accounted for life yet, which can include getting ready, travel to your office/ café/ location of choice, exercise, meal times, socializing, having fun and toilet breaks! I would like you to subtract 6 hours off each day for that on average.
Now we’re seeing that we have this 7-9 hour day in which to work. That still seems like you can a lot of work in that time so why are you still struggling?
Let me guess, your day could look a little like this:
- 1.5 hours on email (added up throughout the day replying, writing, managing)
- 1.5 hours consuming media (news, blogs, tweets, FB messages, watching videos)
- 1.5 hours of marketing & community building (online and offline actions to get more customers)
Do you see how you actually only have 2.5-4.5 hours of `real’ focus time now to work on client proposals, content creation and getting through your to do list.
Now let me ask you how many items you have on your `To Do’ list? I’d say if you’re like many people (including myself when I’m deluded) you have at least 3-5 big important tasks on there that all need several hours worth of your time.
And there lies the problem – you’re already out of time. Especially if your travel time is longer or your family needs mean you can’t work evenings.
So how the heck do you solve this problem? When you reach the limits of your time you need to make some decisions. I’d like to borrow and add to some great tips I read from Julie Morgenstern recently.
Use the four Ds to create a doable plan.
Delete: If it doesn’t fit in with your big-picture goals, say no.
Diminish: Develop shortcuts by creating streamlined systems for routine tasks. Try using Highrise, Basecamp and Tungle.me as a start.
Delegate: Ask yourself what you can delegate and to whom. Delegating allows for healthy interdependence among people; relationships solidify as you share the workload and learn to rely on other people. Look at oDesk and Zirtual for virtual hires.
Delay: Reschedule a task for a more appropriate time. Remember, just because someone asks you to do something the moment they think of it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s urgent. Shut off your email.
What’s your time worth?
One final thing to consider is what your hourly rate is. Really – what is YOUR time worth to you?
Let’s say your Hourly rate = $100 per hour.
You spend 3 hours developing a sales page, managing your contact database or formatting your blog
Total = $300
Cost to outsource this to a virtual team member who probably can do it better than you
Total: $30-60
If you had spent those 3 hours on important work for your clients and customers you could have made
Revenue: $240-270 vs -$300
Your homework:
This week write down all the activities in your day and how long it’s taking you to do them. Then look at how many revenue generating hours you’re putting towards less important tasks.
You’ll be surprised. What can you STOP doing? What can you delegate? Where can you use less time? Read back over the four Ds above and change your game plan.
If you look at Time this way you will wonder why you’re spending 3 hours designing that sales page, or tweaking that blog post, or managing your contacts when you can delegate this to someone who’s just as smart, and probably better at it for much less.
