Rehab Your Time Mindset

"I don't have time."
I've said it.
You've said it.
We've all said it.
Time freedom is something we all want, and we all know that the day only has 24 hours in it - no matter who you are. 

The reality is that we DO have time and while we're inhabiting human bodies on Earth the amount of time we have is finite. 

In this blog I am going to share with you the time exercises I use with both my personal training and business clients ...

Interstellar... an awesome, yet sometimes confusing, movie about quantum physics, space travel, the love of a parent, and lots of tearful close-ups of very attractive movie stars. Grab your popcorn kids.

I will be honest when I hear the words ' time management ' I waiver between all out panic, and total boredom. 

On one hand the concept of time can send me quickly into a existential crisis if I let it (cue Matthew McConaughey in Gravity).  On the other hand those two words together  are often the introduction to man boring H.R. and Self-Help seminars.

But the reality is that unless we end up being the space traveler that unlocks the code to time travel, we are locked in to the experience of every other human - 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 365 days in a year. And it never seems like enough.

We're not doomed to feel this way... helps on the way!

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7 Day Time Inventory
STEP 1:
​Grab a journal (here are some of my favorites) and find blank pages; this journal will be attached to your hip for the next 7 days. 

Over the next week

• write down EVERYTHING (yes, everything) that you do in the day
• at what time it's being done
• how long you spent.  

Be totally honest with yourself and your journal, and don't try to make yourself look good to yourself. There's no one to impress here. I want you to log EVERY distraction (3:30 PM, scrolled instagram for 30 minutes) and I also want you to log the time spend doing your work, driving, running errands, making meals, working out.

Honest truth? Every single person has surprising time wasters - too much TV, too much social media, too much saying YES to tasks that they don't really need to do. I have never taken anyone through this exercise, from any walk of life, who didn't discover and opportunity to reclaim a portion of their day.  

STEP 2:
This inventory ONLY works if you're honest, and it only works if you do it for a full 7 days. 
At the end of the 7 days answer these questions:

• What was my biggest time waster or distraction?
• Where there pockets of time that I spent doing optional tasks?
• Are there any surprise pockets of time that I actually had downtime?
• Can I identify tasks that can be done faster, differently, delegated, or not done at all?

STEP 3:
After answering those questions identify the pocket of time each day that can be freed up. And answer this final question...

• How do I want to fill this time? (It can be taking a nap! Productivity is not the goal; more joy and less angst is.)

EXERCISE #2 DECLUTTERING YOUR SCHEDULE

• On Friday afternoon look at your upcoming week. 
• STEP 1: Look for areas in the upcoming week where you have NOTHING already scheduled, block them as 'creative space', and do not book any additional work, or non-personal meetings in that time.
• STEP 2: Identify any meetings in your upcoming week that could be emails or quick phone calls, either shorten them or cancel them and redirect that time to your higher priority work.
• STEP 3: Confirm all of your PERSONAL appointments (this induces workouts), then your FAMILY appointments, and then your WORK appointments I am going to reiterate the priorities here: you, family, work. Your oxygen mask goes on first. 

EXERCISE #3 PLANNING YOUR DREAM SCHEDULE
​Shift forward two weeks or a month (think blank slate) and use they information from  EXERCISE #1 & #2 to plan how you want your weeks to go.  

Start by plugging in the following blocks each day of the week: PERSONAL, FAMILY, WORK, EXERCISE, CREATIVE, PLAY.  

Using what you already know from Exercise #1 you will have a pretty good idea of what is valuable and unchangeable (i.e. the school bus probably schedule probably isn't changing for this exercise), and identify where the shifts can happen.

Goals: Pre-plan for ...

•  1 hour of PERSONAL time such as bathing, dressing, meditation, alone time every day
• 3-4 hours of CREATIVE space every week.​
• 4 hours of EXERCISE every week
• 5+ hours of PLAY time with friends and family every week.

If you run into a difficulty doing this, go back to the questions in Exercise #1, specifically addressing what tasks can actually be done differently, delegated, or not done at all.