It’s the end of summer, a weekend, or vacation, and you feel like you didn’t really enjoy it, or you missed it. Don’t you hate that feeling? There is a way around it and its taken me years to figure out a trick. We now use it for everything from summer to trips to weekends. I even use it everyday to plan my days. Plan for success to get the most out of anything by starting with the end in mind. That applies to how you spend time as well as cleaning or organizing.

When this is over, What made it good?

Simple question- great idea. You may have heard of the exercise of thinking about your obituary or deathbed and thinking what you want to be remembered for, or what you want to have accomplished. This is the same principle.  Whether its a vacation, a weekend, or even a regular day, think about the end of it and review what you want to have accomplished in that time. Think about how you will feel if each thing doesn’t happen.  Will you feel bad that you didn’t get to movie, or clean a closet, or pay your bills? List the things that you will feel bad about if they don’t happen. Plan for success by ordering them by what is most important to you to get done.

Plan for Success – Create a list

If the things you want to get done are for a short period of time, a checklist will probably work. Checklists help me feel good about what I have accomplished and remind me what is left to do. Remember the trick of “eating the frog first”. If the worst thing you have to do in a day is eat a frog, eat the frog first, then everything else will be easier. This holds true for size of tasks too. Do the harder tasks first, so if you start running out of energy, you don’t need to muster a lot to get the next job done. Also, let’s be honest, it easier to come up with an excuse not to do something if it’s time consuming or difficult, so get those done first.

Plan for Success – List Action Steps

If it’s a big time period, or a project with steps, get them listed. For example, if you really want to go on vacation next summer, there are several steps in the process like making reservations for travel, lodging and events, asking for time off, buying a new swimsuit or other clothes, planning pet-sitting, etc. Make a list of the sites you want to see and plan when you want to do them on the trip. Will you need to make reservations? Do you have a back-up plan for weather?

Say you are going home for the holidays. Who do you most want to see? When will they be available? Have last minute gifts to purchase? Make a plan.

Plan for Success – Get Steps on the Calendar

Planning and dreaming are fine, but for any good plan to work, get it on the calendar. Making last minute decisions tend to be expensive, in time, money, and energy. If you want to paint a room, its a good idea to get the paint and equipment before your room painting day. Plan to get the good seats for the concert by finding out when they go on sale and putting that on the calendar.

LifeSkill Secrets recommends trying this plan with a day or weekend. Then build up to bigger things. But hey, there’s still a lot of summer left so what do you want to have done before summer is over? Plan for success- When summer is over, what made it good?

None of us feel we have enough time, but we all have the same number of hours as everyone else. Planning to get things done is about knowing what we want to accomplish and how long things take to do. Time management is a misnomer. You can’t really manage time, only how you handle it. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you use it more successfully.

Action Steps – Making BIG Tasks Smaller

OK, from the last post you have a calendar, but that only includes the big rocks. What if you have a project that can’t fit into one time slot- for example a research paper to write, or a large project you want to accomplish. How do you get that into your calendar? Here are some steps to get things done that are too big for one time slot.

1. Break your project into action steps

   What do you have to do to get it done? Don’t worry if they are in order

2. Put the steps in the order they have to be accomplished

   What has to be done before the next part can be started

3. Guesstimate how long each step will take

   This may need to be adjusted if you find out things take longer than you think, but remember, you are the boss of yourself so be as tough as you need to be, but give yourself some grace too.

4. Take into consideration the 5 Minute Rule and Margin (below)

   Adjust your steps, order and time allowances if necessary.

5. Put all of these steps onto a calendar

   Allow the time each will need and in the order in which they need to be accomplished.

6. If the steps need to be done in a given order, remember to keep them in that order

   You may want to put an order number on each step so you don’t get the cart before the horse.

The 5 Minute Rule

I mentioned this in another post, but one of the neatest things to discover is the 5 Minute Rule: many tasks take less than 5 minutes to complete and most larger tasks can be broken down into 5 minute pieces. Even if some bits take longer, you can get things done by doing the little pieces without a lot of effort.   In 5 minutes or less you can:

• spray and wipe down the counters in the bathroom
• spray and wipe down the counters in the kitchen
• empty the dish drainer or dishwasher
• dust the living room (or bedroom, or family room)
• Declutter  or straighten a room (OK maybe not all of it, but in time you will keep it clean enough so that you can do this in 5 minutes or less)
• Load the dishwasher

These are just some examples. The point is to use your time wisely by first knowing how long the things you do all the time take, then fitting the other things around them.

Make a game of making things into 5 minute (or less) tasks. Then enjoy getting them done around other things.

Overcoming Overwhelm

Big tasks often give us overwhelm. Sometimes we just don’t know what to do or where to start and run away rather than deal with that feeling of being overwhelmed by the task at hand. Breaking large tasks down into smaller pieces can make it much more manageable. Often, all we have to do is get started to move forward.

One trick for this is to set a timer on undesirable projects. Example: You have to clean your room. You have broken it down to smaller bits, but even they overwhelm you. Take the easiest bit (let’s say its picking up the dirty clothes off the floor) and give yourself 15 minutes. No matter what, you only have 15 minutes. Set a timer. Promise yourself you will give your best for 15 minutes and get in there and pick up the clothes. I’ll bet you get it done in far less than 15 minutes and you will feel good about yourself. Maybe you can pick up the dirty dishes too. Not done in 15 minutes? Too bad. Stop and come back tomorrow or later today to complete it.

Continue on this way until either the job is done, or you are no longer overwhelmed by it and can bash ahead.

Margin

Another really important concept in time relations is margin (important in other areas of life too, but we will start with time).

Allow in your calendar for margin: time for the stuff life throws at you.

An example: I live near a train track. If I only allow for the 10 minutes I need to get places without any margin, I would always be in trouble if I need to cross the tracks and a train comes. STUFF HAPPENS- allow for it. This will reduce a lot of stress. Margin allows for needing to change clothes because you spilled your coffee or a shoelace breaking or traffic jams or trains.  If in week 1 you were slowed by a train, then you know to add that time into your travel time- whether you need it or not. If you get there a little early, you can plan to do one of your 5 minute tasks.

Always plan to be places 10 minutes early.

Allow more if you don’t know the area into which you are going or the ease of parking, etc. It gives you margin, far less stress, and shows respect to the people in your life. Being on time says you respect them (and yourself) enough to plan to be on time.

If you have extra minutes, you can think about what you want to share or what you want to cover in a meeting. Being the first one at a meeting puts you in a position of authority. If you are waiting for someone in a position of power, it makes you look in control of yourself.

Reward yourself for good margin by having a good book with you

that you only get to read when you have extra time due to being on time or early. Or you can spend the time to review your master to-do list to see what needs to be done (or get it done if you have the time and are able to do it while waiting).

Want to learn more about Margin?

This is the book where I learned this concept. The principles are true regardless of your spiritual perspective Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives

Managing time starts with knowing how long things take to accomplish. The easiest way to know what you do and how long it takes to do it is to keep a log for a week. Write down everything you do and how long it takes you. There is no right amount of time. Be real. For example, my son needs 20 minutes to wake up whereas I can hit the ground running. Neither is right or wrong, it’s just the way it is. He has to take that 20 minutes into account when planning his morning or his day will get off on the wrong foot or late, or both.

Being late all the time is often a product of not being realistic about how long things take. I am sure I am not the only one who had it in my head that things took less time than they really do and was always running late. But another reason to know how long tasks take is so you can actually get more done.

Think of it like a puzzle. If you know how long things take, you can fit it into a time slot that size. Emptying the dishwasher takes the same time as my water kettle takes to heat, so I can do that while I am waiting for my tea water in the morning.

After a while, you will know from experience how long things really take. Then you can fit the puzzle pieces together more effectively.

Use a Weekly Calendar

Download this weekly calendar.

Week 1: Just record your times. There is no correct amount of time. Be real. If you forget, pick up again when you remember. If you forget to record your times a lot, it may take a couple of weeks to get a good idea of how long things really take.  Also notice where things look longer than you expected and why.

Keep track of everything you do for a whole week because the time to do things may vary for many reasons, including procrastination. Keeping the calendar and using it will help you eliminate a lot of procrastination if you are honest with yourself about how you are spending (or wasting) time.

Week 2: Start with a new copy and put your set time commitments on it- like work or meetings, classes or groups that have a set time and are not movable. Don’t forget to include travel or preparation time. Put the time you get up and go to bed. Include time to clean up each day and time to unwind at night before going to sleep. Include meal prep, eating and clean up.

Now, add the things you WANT to do. (Is it getting full yet?)  Put these in pencil so if something comes up, you can move them around.  Adjust the week as necessary, but do not remove the necessary things. (Of course, you may use a computer to do this.)

Why Use a Calendar?

Using a calendar helps you develop the practice of thinking of time as the measurable thing that it is. Managing time means being aware of how you are spending it.

Remember, time is a commodity, but you only get so much. A calendar will help you stay on point to get things done that you want (or need) to accomplish.

Think of the calendar as a time budget. You can’t spend what you don’t have. You may need to move a study time to go out with friends, but you have to move that study time to somewhere else on the calendar.  If you are out of time for the week to be with friends, you don’t have time to go out. You can’t spend (time) that you don’t have.

In the post, Planning to Get Things Done, I will talk about making the calendar work for you to get things done, so you are managing time, not just spending it.

Many times I have suggested that its best to start with the end in mind. That is true about your morning routine too. Whether or not you are a morning person, there is usually a limited amount of time to get certain things done in the morning, and planning ahead will make that much easier!

Know What Needs to Be Done

Start by making a realistic evaluation of what you need to do each morning and how long each thing takes. Don’t guess. Even the most time savvy person can delude themselves (or just plain be wrong) about how long things take to do in the morning. My son would say it he’d be ready in 15 minutes when I knew from experience it always took him 45. Imagine my surprise when he actually got it down to 15.

I suggest writing a list of the things you do every morning and tracking the time for a week or two. Include travel time to your job or first appointment. It may be fun to guess how long you THINK things will take then see if you are right. Also guess how long you think the total will take and see how long it all really takes. The difference between these two numbers is Why people are late. Seldom do we consciously decide to be late, but things take longer than we think they will. If we learn to guestimate better and add time for the unexpected, then being on time will be more likely.

If something took much longer on a day, write down the reason. The same applies to the additional things you may not do every day, but that came up (detours, waiting for a train on the way to work, couldn’t find something, etc). How long did each of those things take? This will give you a sense not only of how long the usual things take in your morning routine, but how long you need to allow for the unexpected things. It will also help you figure out what delays you can avoid by taking care of them ahead of time.

If you don’t do the same things everyday so that your total time is different, can you move some things to other days so the total time is more even? (This will help you develop a set time to get up, which helps you sleep better and plan your morning more wisely). It will help if the time for your morning routine is a bout the same from day to day.

Create a Plan

Now that you know how long things really take to get done, create a time plan for yourself.
Start with the time you need to be at work, subtract the time it actually took to get there. Allow time for the train or detours or unexpected delay (which just may be that coffee stop you want to make)> Subtract another 5-10 minutes and that is the time you need to leave the house.

Now go backwards subtracting for all the things in your morning routine. If your usual time is much longer than the sum of each task, you are either fooling around or not waking up well. You need to decide which so you can remedy it (stop fooling around) or allow for it (give yourself the extra time). Now you know what time you need to get up. If you know you simply NEVER get up without 1-2 snoozes, set the time that much earlier.

Subtract from your wake up time the amount of sleep you are going to get (like 8 hours) and you know what time you need to be in bed ready to sleep. Allow at least 1/2 hour without electronics to unwind before sleep.

Your Morning Routine Starts the Night Before

The success of your morning routine starts the night before.

Check the weather for the next day.

We live in Chicago and it can be 60 degrees and rainy one day and 90 and sunny the next. Don’t assume tomorrow will be like today (unless you actually live somewhere that varies little from day to day).

Get Your Clothes and Accessories Ready

Clothes and Shoes

Know what you’ll wear and be sure its clean, pressed (if needed) and available- preferably laid out if possible. Be sure you know which socks, stockings and shoes you will wear and have them available.

Accessories

Lay out ties, scarves, hats, gloves and any other accessories you will need. Lay out your jewelry, including watches, and check that its clean, works and goes with what you are wearing.

Briefcase, Portfolio, Purses and Totes

Be sure you know which briefcase, portfolio, purse and/or tote you are taking and move everything you will need into it the night before. If you need notes or papers for meeting the next day, print or organize them and have them ready to go.

Prepare What You Can the Night Before

Here are some of the easiest things to take care of the night before- you know, the things that can make you carzy if something goes wrong:

1. Fill the coffeemaker or tea kettle and set to start automatically if it has a programming option.
2. Make your lunch (or lunches if you make it for others)
3. Shower – some people shower in the evening then simply style their hair in the morning. I don’t recommend this if you are sleeping with someone else- you know what I mean.
4. Lay out what you can for breakfast, or make it the night before if possible (for example, you can make oatmeal and nuke it in the morning).
5. If you are a slow waker, write a list for yourself of what you need to do, so you don’t have to think about it. Just follow the list.

Try Your New Plan, Change it, Make it a Habit

Make your morning routine easy on yourself. Get a clock for the bathroom, have one in the kitchen and one in your bedroom. Be sure they all have the same time. Same time on your watch too, if you wear one. I keep all mine a couple of minutes fast, just in case.

If you find you consistently have not enough time or time left over, make changes to your plan. It’s your plan. Make it work for you.

Good Morning!