Time Management 101 – What Does Your Schedule Look Like?

Posted by Harmony Rousseau on Apr 30, 2007 in Time Management | 0 comments

I’ve decided to pick weekly personal development themes to focus on, moving forward. This week’s theme is time management, as time is our scarcest resource.

When you’re pursuing a goal, it’s extremely easy to lose focus. That happened to me last week when I failed to update the site once due to web hosting server problems, traveling, and trying to finish up two major client projects. In short, my site posting goals got shoved to the background while I took care of what needed to be done “today.”

During my frantic week, I took some time to reflect why I felt I wasn’t getting anything done. Of course, we all have weeks that border on chaotic, but I realized mine was particularly bad because I fell out of my routine sometime at the beginning of April and my time management abilities seemed to spiral out of control until last week when I was completely out of sync. So, how do you get back on track (or if you don’t have a track, how do you create one)?

The first thing I learned to do to better manage my time was to monitor all my activities over the course of a week. In any given week, there are 168 hours, and since ideally, you’d like to get 8 hours of sleep, that leaves 112 waking hours (or 16 hours/day) to get stuff done, spend time with family and friends, and relax. It seems like plenty of time to do everything we want – until you take a look at where you spend your time.

Over the course of the next week, record your activities hourly – including when you read the paper, check your email, pick the kids up from practice, cook dinner, watch tv, etc. Everything. By the end of the week, you’ll have a good idea of what things to plan for in your weekly schedule.

Then, create a barebones weekly schedule or routine that incorporates all your activities. Here’s a basic daily schedule, but feel free to break it out into weekdays to incorporate all your activities.

7:00 – Wake up
7:30-8:15 – Exercise
8:15-9:00 – Shower/Breakfast/Get to work
9:00-9:15 – Create Daily To-Do List
9:15-11:00 – Project Work or Meetings
11:00-12:00 – Check Email/Voicemail, Make Phone Calls
12:00-1:00 – Lunch
1:00-4:00 – Project Work or Meetings
4:00-5:00 – Check Email/Voicemail, Make Phone Calls
5:30-7:00 – Dinner with Family
7:00-10:00 – Family Time, TV or Movies
10:00-11:00 – Get Ready for Bed, Reading/Journaling
11:00 – Lights Out

Of course, you’ll modify your schedule template based on your activities. If you’re writing a novel or blog, schedule an hour or so solely for that. If you have to do something on certain days of the week, create weekly templates to fit in your classes, meetings, and must attend events.

The goal is to create specific time periods so that you can work without interruption when you need to, check email/voicemail at specific times, and still have a life outside of work. Yes, there will always be times when you can’t stick 100% to the schedule, but if you can follow it even 80%, you’ll drastically increase your productivity.

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