Advice needed: time management

[Terell Kirby]

I am preparing to start my own life coaching practice, as well build out an online learning center for parents raising children (this is part of my life purpose).

I consider myself a visionary and creative person. Coming up with ideas to impact the world in a positive way is quite easy, but my skills in organizing my time towards these visions can be improved.

For the entreprenuers in the audience, how do you go about managing/organizing your time? I am aware of traditional methods such as leveraging daily planners, but any recommendations on additional systems or technologies for organization would be great.

[Sahil Pandit]

@Terell Kirby What are the most important things for you to be doing? Make a list.

Once you make a list, work at those tasks early on in the day, until you notice your will power diminishes.

Perhaps try this out and see how it works for you? Good luck.

[Terell Kirby]

@Sahil Pandit thank you!

[flowboy]

On 13/09/2021 at 6:27 PM, Terell Kirby said:

I consider myself a visionary and creative person. Coming up with ideas to impact the world in a positive way is quite easy, but my skills in organizing my time towards these visions can be improved.

I relate!

On 13/09/2021 at 6:27 PM, Terell Kirby said:

For the entreprenuers in the audience, how do you go about managing/organizing your time?

I have clear timeboxes: 3 days a week are for coaching, 3 days a week are for my programming gig. Always the same days. It has to be so regular that I don't have to think about it.

 

On 13/09/2021 at 6:27 PM, Terell Kirby said:

any recommendations on additional systems or technologies for organization would be great.

I like Notion currently, because the way it lets me organize tasks and projects into multiple views: I can have a calendar with things planned on it, but those things are the same documents that I also have on a KanBan board, as well as on a priority matrix. If you are working on multiple projects that each have tasks, you can create individual planners and roadmaps, but also have an overview of your total calendar that is automatically updated. Because one document can be referenced in all different calendars and lists, if you know how to set it up.

Warning: if you need a complex system for task management, you should first question whether you simply are doing too much at once.

Doing two things at once means that the two projects will take twice as long to complete. It's often more healthy to put them in a sequence, and focus on one goal first. Not just because it's less stressful that way, but also because goal #2 may have changed or become irrelevant by the time #1 completed, because of rapid learning, so needless multitasking is very wasteful.

Edited September 15, 2021 by flowboy

[topazann]

The simplest thing that has worked for me is a simple daily to do list. If you read about many successful people it seems they all have a similar method but basically I use something like https://digital-planner.com/goal/planner/dark
Each day is 1 page. Either the night before or first thing in the morning I write the date at the top and the 5 or so most important things that need to get done. This isn't a fluff list, these are things you know you should be doing that will progress your business.

Then as you do them cross the out, it feels good.

If for some reason I don't get something done, it goes to the next page and keeps doing that until its done.

The secret to success in business is consistent progress towards milestones. A lot of people get caught up on the event. Launching, Filing a new business, an exit, etc but the real money is made by putting on the hard hat everyday and doing the work.

Edited September 16, 2021 by topazann

[Kenn254]

On 9/13/2021 at 7:27 PM, Terell Kirby said:

I am preparing to start my own life coaching practice, as well build out an online learning center for parents raising children (this is part of my life purpose).

I consider myself a visionary and creative person. Coming up with ideas to impact the world in a positive way is quite easy, but my skills in organizing my time towards these visions can be improved.

For the entreprenuers in the audience, how do you go about managing/organizing your time? I am aware of traditional methods such as leveraging daily planners, but any recommendations on additional systems or technologies for organization would be great.

Hi, thanks for this nice question. I want to let you know that time cannot be managed. You can only manage activities. To achieve this, I suggest that you form the habit of setting goals. This can simply be a list of activities you want to accomplish by the end of the day. You gotta carry this in your pocket wherever you go. So the way you use it is that when you start your day, start with activity number 1, focus on that until you finish it, then proceed to activity number two which you also work on until you achieve it. You just do the same until you accomplish all of your goals. While, working, it is advisable that you minimize distractions as much as possible so that you can only focus on the things you want to achieve.

Hope this can help.

[Nahm]

Time is like calories. Ample clarity arises of the accounting. 

[Matt23]

3 hours ago, Nahm said:

Time is like calories. Ample clarity arises of the accounting. 

Can you clarify? ;P

Sounds like you're saying the more you contemplate how much time you have in life, the more clairty will arise about whag to do with it.  ...?

[Nahm]

@Matt23

I mean just like counting how many calories one eats in a day is very eye opening & clarifying… logging, or writing down how each hour is spent is too. Like if the question is ‘how do I most effectively manage my time’, the answer that arises imo is to look with some scrutiny at how the time is already being spent. I think this tends to tell you everything you want to know in regard to any changes you want to make. 

[hamedsf]

all of the "time management stuff" boils down to the prioritization.

so prioritize stuff on the paper and then implement 'em one by one.

[flowboy]

1 hour ago, hamedsf said:

all of the "time management stuff" boils down to the prioritization.

so prioritize stuff on the paper and then implement 'em one by one.

Agreed.

And you're not prioritizing until you're deprioritizing. Shelving things for later, adding them to the Not Doing list. If it hurts, you're doing it right.