Sounded kind of funny!
But then for the sake of it, what if you knew that you can choose the length of your day.
How many hours would you want it to be?
What all would you want to accomplish in those extra hours. Can you imagine the possibilities! Oh man, I would’ve totally done this and that and that.
What if I tell you there’s a secret sauce to make it happen and it totally works.
Read on to understand the magic.
Drumroll.
Welcome to Time Auditing.
So you have been wondering where does someone gets all the time to catch up with everything. For getting an answer to this query, you need to run a small experiment.
- You need to run this experiment not when things are exclusive but when you week looks like a normal working week in your life. Take out a week and choose a time span from 3-7 days depending upon the availability.
- Download a time auditing app such as Toggl or RescueTimeor you can just put an alarm on your phone recurring every half an hour.
- Log whatever activity you’re doing without worrying about the details. If using pen and paper, just write it down.
Once you’re done, the recognition of patters can be very confronting. Use this data to understand how and why certain activities had greater time consumption despite their inconsequential status.
Develop a plan which includes corrections, resolutions and more focus. See the opportunity of stacking certain activities like checking mails or replying to not so pressing messages on whatsapp etc, as a focused activity at a certain time.
Establish a perimeter stating boldly who are contributing positively towards the investment of you rtime and what is evidently a time wastage. Use this knowledge to device your day, interactions and dealings.
Do plan a time auditing as a future endeavor after say 2 months. Repeat this cycle till you understand the pattern and approve the changes. Its an Iterative process as new factors and sources will keep getting added even though you would’ve tackled the time positive or negative elements in the past.
There are six steps in the original technique:
- Decide on the task to be done.
- Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).[2]
- Work on the task.
- End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.[6]
- If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
- After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
Morning Rituals
Claim Your Mornings!
The day is won if it starts early. Notwithstanding the constraints of the late night job shift or the difference in time zones, the packet of morning time that is traded against that patch of sleep, is an opportunity which can be very well appreciated and exploited. Think of it like this, you have an opportunity in your SWOT analysis and now what are you going to do with it?
Are you going to let it slip because you are too lazy to get up or you can’t find an additional slab of time to wind up the rest of the sleep?
Excuses sounds best to the person who makes them.
I am fully empathetic to a very hardworking you , who’s really playing multiple roles at any given time. You’re handling you job functions. family and personal life pretty well but let me tell you a secret. You can be at least 39% more efficient if you utilize these golden hours from the morning to the daybreak.Let me run you through a general morning in mine or your life.
- Shut the snooze, 5.4.3.2.1. and up.
- Say a thank you prayer, morning gratitude to the force. Write my gratitude journal. What am I thankful for today.
- Plan my day. Go back to my previous day plan and strike off all that’s completed, well done! Cater for over spillage.
- Generally define my day and keep some reserves for catering deviations.
- Listen to morning affirmations as I walk the dog. May be just sitting on the terrace. May be just meditating. Some Yoga ? A jog ? Simple mat stretching or exercising perhaps.May be.
- Your day has not even started and yet you’ve won it already more than half way!
Know this , a habit will take at least 3 days to materialize in your thoughts and this effort does not have a workaround.
No one else is going to do your pushups!
About Focus.
A lot of times we experience that though we are reading or working on something and we end up tunneling somewhere else. As my grandmom used to say
“The mind is at unrest like a Peepal leaf.
A small breeze and it goes swinging to places!”
This wandering of awareness can have certain triggers which are very much identifiable. Did you know “A simple action such as picking up a call and just saying “YES” can put you right at square one and it could take as much as 20 minutes to gain back to the same tempo of understanding and getting into whatever work/activity you were doing.
Recognizing these distractions and making a positive effort towards neutralizing these distractions is a much needed work. This might seem like a mammoth task but fear not, Drumroll again ..
Welcome to Pomodoro Technique!
So, you’re not in this alone and distraction is very common. To tackle this, we have our friend Pomodoro, derived from Italian word “Tomato”. The whole idea is to break the work into smaller actionable time slots and strike a balance between work and fatigue. The timer is usually 25 minutes, but depending on your preference you can modulate the duration as preferable.
This technique can be summed up as follows
There are six steps in the original technique:
- Decide on the task to be done.
- Set the pomodoro timer (traditionally to 25 minutes).[2]
- Work on the task.
- End work when the timer rings and put a checkmark on a piece of paper.[6]
- If you have fewer than four checkmarks, take a short break (3–5 minutes), then go to step 2.
- After four pomodoros, take a longer break (15–30 minutes), reset your checkmark count to zero, then go to step 1.
For keeping alerts, you can use your smartphone for setting recurring reminder or you can also use app such as Pomellowhich is available both for phone and desktop.
Humans are flawed and its okay!
As humans, our minds are not built to like doing effort taking work or activities naturally.The modern studies show that as its said that we are the hero of our life’s movie and that we control our lives is almost but not totally true. As humans, we need motivation and perks to trick our mind to do things which would otherwise generally appear strenuous.
The high dopamine activities can be used as a lure for finishing accomplishing task. With the time allocation tools discussed above , I am sure that a fair bargain can be made between doing the work and celebrating the success rather than wasting time on activities that can be clubbed together and done in a go.
With that said, keep the evenings to yourself, spend some good family time, play with kids and your dog and cook sometimes for a change. With everything else, remember ,
Time is currency, Use yours wisely.
and also,
Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans
Live each day as you would’ve actually lived it when you acknowledge this day wont come back again in your life. Enjoy, but choose wisely.
Godspeed and all the best to your time management plans! It’s grind season Homie.
Cheers!