It's Time To Manage Your Time!

Are you the kind of entrepreneur who really has great intentions about what you need to do each day, but forrnsome reason, you never seem to get everything (or anything) done? Do you have difficulty prioritizing your time, setting boundaries and saying “no” to requests during the day? Do feelings of overwhelm, frustration and disorganization seem to be manifesting themselves on a regular basis in your life?

Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the term time management before (after all, you're an entrepreneur), and you have a pretty good idea of what that means, but I’d like to challenge you to think about your time with a new set of lens. I am a firm believe
that how you feel about yourself and how you treat yourself really determines how you spend your time. Although self-respect and self-esteem are huge topics in themselves, I do believe that they play a clear role in terms of how people manage their time. Let’s work through this concept together and see what it means in your life.

Without sugar coating this basic truth, you have a choicernabout how you live your life and how you spend your time. I’m not suggesting that a ‘bad day’ is your fault or that life doesn’t ‘happen’ when you least expect it, but in the grand scheme of things, you really do have choices in terms of your intentions, perspectives and, yes, time management.

I would like to suggest that, when you feel good about yourself and value your time, your priorities become crystal clear. It’s as though you’ve given yourself permission to really see what’s most important in your life. You need to remind yourself that you are valuable and that you deserve to live a high-quality life. This way ofrnthinking really opens you up to seeing your priorities in a new light.

Here’s a simple exercise to help you identify your priorities. On a sheet of paper, draw a line down thernmiddle, so that you have two columns. On the left-hand side, make a list of all of the things that takernup the most of your time right now. You can call this column your “Current Priorities”. On the right-handrnside, make a list of the things that are most important to you in your life (whether you’re makingrntime for them now or not). You can name this column “New Priorities”. Take as much time as you need
for this exercise. Looking at both lists, ask yourself the following questions:

*Am I happy about my current priorities?
*Am I involved in too many activities?
*Where would I like to spend more of my time?
*What needs less attention? More attention?

There are a variety of ways to use this exercise to move you forward in a way that will help you feel more balanced and more in control of your time. However, one of the strategies that I have found to be extremely helpful with my entrepreneur clients is to have them spend about 10 minutes each evening (after dinner and putting kids to bed, for example) to plan the day ahead. Find a way to plug in a few of your priorities FIRST into your calendar/schedule before the other tasks. This way, you’re guaranteeing that you are making time for what’s really important first, and you’re honouring yourself enough to put your self-care ahead of all the things that beg for your attention. Try this simple strategy out for a week and see how you feel about it.

Wishing you a wonderful week of managing your time and experiencing success while doing so!