As a time management expert, I still get excited, REALLY excited when a well executed time management plan pays off. Monday was one of those well executed days and a great example of why time management is so important. Let me share with you a true time management success story.
On Monday, a dear friend of my who is not often in town sent me a text message that he was available to meet me for coffee. On a bad day (yes, even I have time management bad days), I would have had a vague idea of what I wanted to accomplish. Without a clear plan, I would have spent much of my time working on Facebook and doing whatever came up at the moment. This definitely is not the most efficient way to get things done. Feeling like I hadnt gotten anything accomplished, I would have turned down the opportunity to me my friend.
However, this was a good day. I had spent an hour or so on Sunday planning out exactly what I wanted to accomplish this week and scheduling each task on my calendar as an appointment. On Monday, I had an incredibly full day of activities and tasks until about 6pm when it would be family time. Fortunately, I had committed to working with intention that day and completed many of those activities in less time than I had scheduled.
Now, normally, if I schedule one hour for a task and it only took 45 minutes, Id spend 15 minutes on social media (yes, thats my big time suck). Thats is a great way to handle things overall but there is an even better way.
On Monday, I realized that my social media time was scheduled on my calendar already. EVERYTHING for the week was. Therefore, rather than wasting extra time on social media, I opted to move on to the next task on my calendar, 15 minutes early
Because I was quickly moving through tasks I was quite a bit a head of schedule. Therefore, when my friend texted, it took very little for me to find the extra time.
Planning your week saves you time.So here are the lessons from this experience that even this Time Management Expert appreciated being reminded of:
- Planning your week helps you to work with intention.
- Planning all of your activities (even the time sucking ones) helps you to know there will be a time for everything.
- When you know what your next task is, it is easier to stay on task rather than get distracted wondering what you should do next.
- You never know how time management will reward you.
- Having an efficient plan helps you to be spontaneous!
- Being able to be spontaneous AND having accomplished everything on your to-do list is an incredibly awesome feeling.
I was really grateful to have had the opportunity to meet up with my friend. He is always very inspiring and uplifting to me. Having a great plan allowed that to happen.
And theres a bonus to this story. While meeting my friend, I ran into a new friend whom I have only just recently met. Through my introduction of her, she later shared that she learned a very valuable experience as well. An experience she may not have been given if I hadnt done a great job of managing my time.