Do YOU have enough TIME?!
There is never enough time to do everything you have to do. You are literally swamped with tones of work, personal responsibilities, projects, stacks of magazines, piles of books you intend to get to one of those days — when you get caught up. But you are never going to get caught up. You will never get on the top of your tasks. You will never get far enough ahead to be able to get to all those magazines, books, and leisure time activities that you dream of. Does this situation sound familiar? If yes, then please keep reading this post. If no, then please tell me how you are not overwhelmed by Life in general. I am all ears.
We are going to chat a bit about Time Management. This is always a hot topic. The reason is that we all struggle with it either in professional life or personal life. I want to share 3 tips with you all that I am reaping fruits of. All of these ideas are from this very practical book “Eat That Frog” by Brian Tracy. Read till the end for a Bonus Tip that will change the way you behave and speak with your own self.
ABCDE Method:
Yes, you read that right. Don’t go by its simple name. This method is a very powerful, effective, and efficient way to prioritize tasks. Here is how it works. You write down all the tasks you have to do for the day or week, however, you like to plan. You then place an A, B, C, D, E next to each item on the list before even beginning the first task.
The “A” item is the most important task, something that you must do. If you have more than one A task, you can mark them as A1, A2 in that order where A1 is the biggest and the most important task. For eg., some tasks related to the current project you are working on at work.
Next, the “B” task is something you should do, but it has only mild consequences. The rule is that you should never do a B task when there is an A task pending. Eg., retuning back a missed call from someone.
A “C” task is something that would be nice to do but for which there are no consequences at all whether you do it or not. Eg: catching up with your friend.
A “D” task is something you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you delegate everything that someone else can do it for you while you concentrate on your A tasks. The earlier you delegate the tasks the better it is since the other person can start working on it in parallel.
Now coming to the “E” task which is my favorite. This is that task that you can eliminate altogether. For eg., I have stopped watching TV series that are filled with violence even though they may be highly recommended and my husband’s favorites. Now I am not going to name the series, people might boycott me, so I am playing safe here 🤣
Competition:
Only about 2% of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people “leaders”. This is the kind of person we are meant to be and that we can be if we decide to be. What I enjoy doing is to gamify the whole task. Let me share with you, how. I reward myself for starting a task earlier, or for finishing a task earlier, or for working a little harder by going the extra mile than usual. So, I set deadlines and sub-deadlines and then race against the clock to get things done. I enjoy that rush of endorphins I get from accomplishing a task slightly faster or better than last time. In short, compete with yourself and no one else.
Get out of Technological Time Sinks:
Technology can be our best friend as well as our worst enemy. What started off with connecting people with others on the other side of the planet is now disconnecting us with the people right next to us. A whole new video can be made on how Technology is harming us than helping us, well a whole movie itself has been made on it — The Social Dilemma, so I don’t want to dwell over it. What I have already done is curb my time on social media as I have already mentioned in the blog I made on Breaking Bad Habits. What I want to try from now on is to keep my phone in another room while I am working and want to focus hard. Only calls will be allowed and the rest will be muted. I request you all to embark on this journey with me. Let's do this together, what do you say? We can discuss how this benefited us in a month’s time. Leave a comment below if you want to start this habit with me.
I want to share a quick Bonus Tip with you all here. To perform at our best, we must become our own personal cheerleaders. To keep ourselves motivated, we must resolve to become a complete optimist. We must decide to respond positively to the words, actions, and reactions of the people and situations around us. I am struggling with this spirit too. For example, I use CULT.FIT exercise classes for my everyday exercise. The first time I exercised with my video ON, I got a rank of 37 out of 490 people. Instead of feeling happy about it, my first reaction was “maybe half of those people wouldn’t have turned their cameras on, and that is why I got a decent rank”. I immediately corrected myself when my thoughts became negative. I should encourage and thank my body for bringing me in the TOP 10% of the class and not demotivate myself which could lead to a worse performance next time. So let us all promise ourselves to be encouraging and motivating to ourselves. It is an ongoing process for me too.
Always remember, By the yard, its hard; but inch by inch, anything’s a cinch.
Happy Learning and Bye
Below is the video I made on the same topic. Please do watch it and if you find it useful, then please SUBSCRIBE to my channel.
