Are you mindful of your time? Do you know where you waste time? Our minds like to hide these from us, to keep us safe and comfortable. To find your time wasters, you need to keep tabs on where you spend your time. I know this is not something people love to do. I’ve heard so many excuses when it comes to tracking time.
Tracking your Time
As I mentioned above, I hear so many excuses from my client when I ask them to track their time. They do not want to shine a light on areas where they are not mindful of their time.
Why do I ask them to track their time? Because what you pay attention to improves.
Would you like to create more time in your day? Figuring out where you spend your time is the first step.
Be mindful of the time you spend in your email.
Email, email, email. Never closing down your email will cause you to feel busy. You’ll always feel as if you're in reaction mode. You are reacting to all the emails coming from others.
David Allen talks about email as other people's agenda for your time. Have a process for going through your email. Do not derail your priorities for the priorities of others. I work with my clients on creating boundaries and business rules in regards to email.
You need to be a steward of your time. All those minutes add up, negatively impacting your goals and priorities.
I know what you’re thinking; how do I do this. Block time in your calendar to go through your inbox. Here’s an example of how to handle email.
You receive a message from a client, friend, colleague of a task that you most complete for them.
Next, open your calendar and block time when you’ll do the work. Now, this is important, fit the work into your schedule. Reply to the sender with a specific date and time you blocked on your calendar to work on their request. But there’s a catch; you must do the work when you say you’re doing the work.
You guessed it, social media.
I know social media gets brought up a lot, and it should.
Social media is a massive time-waster.
Can you think of a time when you were mindful of your time when scrolling social media feeds?
Some people don't consider all-time wasted on these platforms. It should come as no surprise social media platforms do things to keep us engaged on their media because this is how they make money. With ads.
Generally, anything offered by a business for free has some way of making money. Know how much time you're giving away to social media. Where could that time be better to spend?
Little Side Note
Monica Drake said, “The only value of wasted time is knowledge.”
I encourage you to look at your time wasters and use that knowledge to be mindful of your time.
Create Time
If you genuinely want to create space to work on your goals and priorities, I encourage you to find the little sneak place where you’re not being mindful of your time.
Is keeping track of your time hard. It may be if you choose to think of it as hard. Or you may decide to come at it with an open-minded. You are excited to figure out where to be mindful of your time and stop the sneaky little time wasters. The choice is always up to you.
I know you’re ready to get out of your head and choose thoughts that create the future of your dreams. The link to my private coaching application is below.
Private Coaching
Why do I believe in the power of private coaching?
Because it is truly life-changing. When your coach asks you that mind-blowing question that suddenly allows you to see what you've been missing all along that was literally right in front of your face.
You just need someone with a different perspective to help you see it.
Are you ready to experience life from a different perspective?
