Why Time Management is So Important

Time management is always something that is a topic of conversation that comes up because there always seems to be more to do on our to-do list than time to do it.

It's figuring out what’s most important and figuring out the strategies to put in place, the boundaries and the rules. It has really become one of the things that I’ve studied for a long time and I am becoming more effective and more efficient. It has been a real focus of mine, not only for myself but to help others to maximize the time that they have because I believe that work is something that we do in order to enjoy our free time. If all we do is work and if all we’re doing is doing instead of being, that’s no fun.

Really laying out our time efficiently throughout the day allows you to be the most productive. We gain that time back and that really is what we think we’re working towards. It’s gaining more time with our family and doing those things that we feel are so important. We get so caught up and I’m as guilty as anyone, just running the day to day, on and on, and push as many hours as it takes and before you know it, two weeks had gone by and I barely had a meal with family.

I think the very first place that I would tell anyone to start is to carve out some time when time is not rushed. Whatever day of the week, or evening of the week, or afternoon of the week, whether that’s a Friday afternoon before you leave the office or a Sunday afternoon after you’ve gone to church and you’ve had your nap, and ask yourself “what are some hours of time where you can sit and look at what’s coming in the future?”

List some intention and purpose, based on vision. Maybe we start with the vision, what is it that you truly want, what’s most important to you and then not having a day in actuality before you have it visually in your mind. When I’m thinking about let’s say 2020, I have a 2020 vision. It’s a play on words, obviously. But the year 2020 is coming up. It’s not that far in the future.

When I look at what I want to accomplish next year, I know that if I just show up every day and I wake up at whatever time I wake up and I look at my phone and then I look at my email and then I look at Facebook and then it’s 5:00 and nothing has happened I feel unproductive and like I haven’t accomplished anything and I’m behind and I’m always running to catch up. I hate that feeling. I like to be ahead of the power curve, I was the star student, at least for two out of the 20 years I went to school, and I really like to turn things in ahead of time.

I don’t like to be the person that’s doing my taxes on April 14th or April 15th or April 16th or filing an extension. There is something very powerful about knowing that your Christmas shopping is done by December 15th, how do you do that? The way to do that is to look at what you want to accomplish and then put it into time blocks on your calendar ahead of time. Starting with I have four weeks of vacation that I would like to take and when am I going to take those weeks? blocking those off and holding them sacrosanct, that nothing is going to change your mind about when that time block is going to occur. My personal rule is I don’t work evenings, weekends or holidays.

I have a dividing line between work and play, family time, recreational time. I get up early in the morning and I get up with intention and purpose. I get up at the same time every day, I have the same routine, I have work hours, I’m not doing anything that isn’t on my calendar when my calendar says it’s time to do it. However, it is surprising to some people, when they really get in the weeds with me and they’re like “Okay, how do you do all the things?” And what would surprise most people is that the hour of noon. Lunchtime is lunch and rest. There are lines in the sand, lines of demarcation that say this is work time and this is non-work time which allows me to be effective and efficient, to recharge, and then to perform when I am working.

Listen to the full podcast here: https://lifebridgecapital.com/2019/10/ws373-how-to-maximize-your-productivity-through-effective-time-management-with-honoree-corder/