Can You Get Back Time?

Time blocking, why you should get on board!

The first thing we need to understand about time, is it is exactly like money. You can spend your time, you can invest your time, or you can waste it! Are you spending your time wisely? Time management is a huge key to making sure you business doesn’t only grow, but flourishes! Today we are going to go over three techniques to maximizing the time you are working!

Time blocking

Time blocking is an amazing technique that will not only help you see what you are spending your time on, but it will also help you see where you are wasting time. The rules of time blocking are pretty simple, it will help you stick to your schedule, and help you realize just how many hours a week you are working, or wasting.

Basically the first thing you do is write down everything you need to get done in a week, and how much time you think you need to complete each task. Now get a weekly calendar that has the time labeled out and block off the time you are sleeping, when you plan to make food or eat, and don’t forget to leave yourself time to go to the bathroom, and room for driving from place to place.

Once you have blocked off all the time that you need to, you are left with time to work or relax. The point is not to just put work, or relax, but be specific instead of writing work, write answer emails, and phone calls. Being specific will hold you more accountable.

The same thing goes for time that you set aside for relaxing, don’t say relax, say take a bath, watch a movie, or creative time. The idea of time blocking is when you see how wheat you have to do, and how long you have to do it, it is easier to stick to that timeline.

This will also help you to balance your priorities, if you track it for the first month, instead of creating something to stick to you can see what you are wasting tome on, and what you are actually spending time on.

Prioritize

One of the main parts of time blocking is figuring out where your priorities are for that week. A great way to figure out where your priorities lay is to write a to-do list, and just sit down to figure out what is the most important for you to get done. I have seen planners that start with you writing down goals for different time periods, and then going through and circling only one in each time period.

This shows you what is the most important, its not saying that the other goals you have mean nothing, it simply means that the goal you circled, is the most important, and your priority, for the time being. Remember that it’s ok for your priorities to change over time. That is why it’s so important for you to go through what you have to do regularly.

When creating your priorities, you have to remember that your main priority is what you spend the most time on. Saying my family is my number one priority, and spending the majority of time on your business doesn’t make sense.

If you say your family is your main priority, then you have to spend the most time on that aspect. Time is the only thing in life you truly cannot get back, you can however get back money, connections or opportunities, what you spend your time on, is your number one priority always.

Commit

The hardest part of time blocking is actually committing. Once you decide how much time you are supposed to spend in any one area of the day, you have to only spend that amount of time on it. Even if you do not finish your task, you need to commit!

The reason this is so hard for so many people is they don’t want the satisfaction of completing a task. No matter when you get the task finished, you are going to spend the same amount of actual time on that one task. If you have committed an hour a day to work on one task, it will end up taking you the same amount of hours spread out as it would all clumped together.

Truthfully it should actually take you less time. The theory behind this is focusing in small burst can be more productive due to the fact your brain can stay truly focused more productively.

Time blocking may seem simple, but it is extremely effective! Seeing exactly how you are spending your time is a wake up call, and not one that you can easily ignore. This is because it is written down clearly in front of you. Remember to always prioritize, and when you say you are going to do something commit! Don’t let yourself get away with wasting your time anymore.