Drive your own time machine through your life transition

Time usually takes on a special meaning during life transitions. By definition, transitions take us from the familiar to the unknown. Most people feel they’re moving faster or slower than before. Here are three ways to steer your own time machine.

1. Get lots of information. Then get more.

Information is the unglamorous yet essential key to saving time and money. Moving to a new town? Your first priority is to learn what’s available and where – and how to take a shortcut to get there. New job? Learn what’s important and what can be ignored.

The biggest time-waster, of course, is making the wrong choice. Choose a job (or a town) where you’re a misfit and you’ll re-invest time and energy making a new move. Back to school? Often the program that promises a fast track turns out to be a long detour.

Use my Rule of Six: Ask six people who know the score. These days you may have to pay for information, especially if you’re calling consultants who sell their time. Often it’s a wise investment.

2. Hire help – carefully.

Often you can outsource your biggest time sink. At the simplest level, you can hire a service to clean your house and yard before you move. But many people are surprised to learn how many business owners and corporate executives hire their own support team when they need to learn a new skill or get a new perspective.

For instance, a newly promoted senior executive with little experience in report writing hired me to help him create an effective document. Savvy business owners invest substantial sums to learn new skills and to get help when learning isn’t a good use of their own time.

Of course, when you’re entering a transition, choosing resources may present an extra challenge. If you’ve never hired a cleaner or a copywriter, where do you start? Best to use the Rule of Six. Ask six people who routinely hire these resources not just who they recommend but how they make their choices. And no matter how carefully you choose, you’ll make at least one mistake – the price of learning, which will still be cheaper than trying to do it all yourself.

3. Anticipate a slowdown.

It’s inevitable! You can expect to operate at 70-80% of your usual efficiency following a major life transition – move, career change, or loss. Working faster may just create more chaos and, in the early stages, most people haven’t learned how to work smarter. Set up your "To Do" list and your expectations accordingly.