Time Management - How To Gain Control Of Your Free Time

Firstly, let me just point out that just because I'm writing this blog about time management, doesn't mean that I'm always on time for everything. I'm not. I've noticed that I manage my time poorly sometimes, which is why I've started reading more about how I can start to save bits of time here and there. The general idea is that we shave bits of time off the 'everyday' activities where we can. When we do this, (it soon adds up) we will have more time for the things we actually want to do. So, here are a few of the tips I've read so far...​

1.) Do errands in a way that you only have to make left hand turns.
2.) If a microwave meal says 4 - 4 1/2 minutes, always go for the lower time.
3.) Record all of your favourite shows so you can fast forward through all the adverts (which makes sense on some level).

​Some ideas are better than others and although they will indeed help to shave off bits of time, after doing more research and looking into how busy, successful people manage their time, I actualy think we might have this backwards. 

​I remember a story I was told a few months ago when I went to a business seminar in London. There was a lady (I can't remember her name now) who ran a study or rather a time diary project, that looked into the lives of extremely busy women (children, demanding jobs, own business, community commitments etc). She had them all keep track of their time over a certain amount of weeks so she could add up how many hours they worked and slept etc and analyse the data. One of the women on the study, went to work one day (I think she ran her own business) and came home to find her boiler was broken and water all over the lower level floor of her house. She dealt with the immediate aftermath that night and then for the next few days she had professional cleaners and plumbers in to fix the problem and repair any damage. This was recorded on her time log and showed that the whole incident ended up taking over 6 hours of her week to put right. Before this happened, I'm sure if you would have asked her if she could find 6 hours to train for a 10k run or 6 hours to mentor 4 worthy people, she would have said what most us would have said; "No, sorry, I'm too busy". Yet when she had to find 6 hours because there was water all over the floor in her house, she found the 6 hours she needed. What this shows us, is that time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time can stretch to accommodate what we choose to put into it. I believe that the key to time management is treating our priorities as the equivalent of that broken boiler. Let me explain further. 

​Everything you do in life is a choice. How you choose to spend every hour, every minute, every second is up to you. You decide. Rather than saying "you don't have time for something " you could say, "Im not doing that because it's not a priority" (maybe not out loud). Sounds harsh but when you say "I don't have time" this essentilly means that it's not a priority to you. I could tell you right now that I dont have time to clean out the messy cupboard under the stairs but if you offered me £20,000 to do it, I would get to it rather quickly. Since that isn't going to happen, the moral of the story is that it's not a matter of lacking time, it's more the fact that I don't want to do it - it's not a priority to me. There may be consequences for making these choices- granted, but we are smart people and certainly over the long run we have the power to fill our lives with the things that deserve to be there. When we do this, we could potential be happier and feel more fulfilled. 

​A strategy that could help you to realise what priorities you have is something called a three category priority list. Career, Relationship, Self. Making a three-category list reminds us that there should be something in all three columns. It's easy to prioritise career and relationships but sometimes harder to prioritise something for our selves. However, it is essential to our growth and to our mental health.  This can be done weekly or monthly to suit and maybe just a few things to start with. How you structure your priorities and how you choose to use your time is up to you. I know this may be harder for some people to do (I don't want to minimise anybodies struggle) but there are 168 hours in a week. That is a lot of time- use it wisely. 

​What I've taken from all the research I've done is that there is time. Even if we are extremely busy people, we still have time for what matters to us and if we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want with the time we have. 

​Love and light,
Rachel xx