“CHOICE MANAGEMENT” IS THE NEW TIME MANAGEMENT

Happy Monday!

This week, we’re taking a  “Time Out” from the Organize and Refine Your Home Challenge assignments. Before we begin the Kitchen challenge next week, I thought it might be useful to take a step back and reflect on your progress so far.

I’ve heard from many of you who have shared your Challenge successes…woot woot! Some of you have also shared your struggles with carving out time from your busy schedules in order to complete the Challenge assignments. In order to help those of you who are struggling with this issue, I’ve invited fellow blogger and Time Strategy Visionary Lisa Crilley Mallis to share her wisdom with you today.

Lisa is the owner of SystemSavvy Consulting; she believes every person deserves the opportunity to live the life of their dreams, feeling in control and bringing balance into their lives. Lisa is a master at cutting to the heart of overwhelm to help you regain control of your schedule and experience life.

Do you get all excited about participating in the Organize & Refine Your Home challenges, and then wonder how to make time to actually follow through and complete the challenge?

Stop for a moment, and take a look at today’s tasks on your to-do list. Have you included a task from the current challenge?

HAVE YOU COMPLETED IT YET?

I was talking about “completing important tasks” at a recent workshop. Most of the room had already identified their #1 most important task for the day, but only about 20% of those had completed the task, and the work day was half over. (If you fall into the 25% of people that don’t know their “most important tasks” I invite you to peruse some of these posts on prioritizing.)
Often I share with my clients that being in control of your day isn’t about time management – it’s about choice management.

Accomplishing the task that is your #1 priority each day is about following a structure that works and making choices.

Follow these steps:

1. Choose the most important task from the challenge to complete today.
2. Add the time to complete this task in your calendar – create an appointment with yourself. This time slot is where you will devote uninterrupted time and attention to working on the current challenge.
3. Schedule a buffer around this “magic time slot.” This buffer is usually used to check email and phone messages, allowing you to enter into the scheduled time slot with a clear mind regarding your communication obligations.
4. If you CHOOSE not to complete your Challenge task during the scheduled slot, write down what you did instead. (Following this step forces you to make a decision – do what you originally planned, or change the plan. Otherwise, you can feel like “oops – where did the time go?”)
5. If you CHOOSE to do something else, reschedule the original task immediately. This ensures you still make progress on completing the current challenge.

At the end of the week, reflect back. How many times did you complete your challenge assignment during the scheduled slot? If you didn’t, what did you choose to do instead? Do your challenge assignments get bumped more often than other tasks? Are certain times of the day “magic” – you find you can complete tasks during this time of the day consistently?

By capturing this data during the week, and then reflecting on it, you are then able to schedule more proactively and enjoy the process of completing your challenge assignments.

I Invite you to implement this 5-step process over the next month of the Organize & Refine Your Home Challenge, then come back to this post to leave a comment about how it worked for you!