… A day has 24 hours and a week has 168. No matter how cool and wonderful you are, your activity should be limited to this.
Laura Vanderkam “I Know How She Does It. How Successful Women Make The Most of Their Time”
That’s about how limits also the informativeness of Laura Vanderkam’s book – 400 pages per modest idea. A so-so time saver. But your favorite blog will not leave you alone in this trouble.
Make the most of your time
How does she do it? She plans exactly 168, not 24. The main idea of the book is to maneuver in 168 hours a week, instead of concentrating on one day; we don’t have to build an hourly daily routine, instead we can find our own balance between career, family and leisure, dividing the whole week into hours.
Since childhood, most of us are accustomed to living according to the scheme of waking up – eating – studying / working – eating – sleeping, and only the very minimum of our time is really planned. She rearranges and combines the seemingly incompatible things: business meeting as a play date, “working” cocktail, and so on. The ability to juggle hours and tasks can work wonders, and well-planned events will support you. Even if the event isn’t a business meeting, but having rest.
Have you ever been in a situation where a nanny came to your house in order to provide you with some rest, and you are making kitchen noises instead? But if you are enrolled in pilates class at that time, you can definitely forget about the problem. In addition, until time is planned, there will always be a temptation to perform several tasks at once and pick them up on your way, these little “here and there” never end – and as a result you have that feeling that the day is over, fatigue is unreal, and nothing seems to be actually accomplished.
However, everyone has their own problems with planning. If you spend more time writing than performing, then it’s not your thing, because everyone has their own rhythm. Moreover, our brains work in different ways. And how to find what suits you best? Experiment 🤷. Especially since one thing is suitable today and another tomorrow.
Find your own way to plan
Here are different ways to plan, choose / mix your own:
- daily to-do list (written in the evening, done the next day; can be written by hour; you can prioritize by importance or just choose the top 2-3, which must be done)
- a list of tasks for the month, divided into weeks and days;
- a list for the day / week / month from which you choose what you want / can do now (fits well for people who hate routine: you can choose, while limiting the choice makes sure you don’t go crazy)
- “Task in a hat” – great for people who have a zero resource (throw papers with small feasible tasks to the hat and randomly take one each day; a small task is done – dopamine thanks to the feeling of completeness is guaranteed)
- flowlist (to-do list which includes regular tasks like shower, breakfast etc + slowly, one by one, you can add harder tasks, and this is how, slowly, you start to accomplish more tasks sort of automatically, in flow; it’s important to carefully cross out all of tge lines at the end of the day and write a new list)
- calendar (usually done for one task; determine the time required for execution, divide the sheet into the appropriate number of cells, and put crosses for each completed day)
- mentor (if you can’t make up at all – there are people who can make you up; everyone has their own talents)
- if you are not able to plan time, there are plenty of other things to plan: food, sports, shopping, and then, who knows, maybe time will catch up
- brainstorming (when there are problems with decisions and ideas; write down everything that comes to mind, then reflect what suites you and makes sense)
- deep approach: define clear goals for the year, month, week, respectively, in all spheres of life; prioritize and add deadlines, divide into sub-goals and add deadlines to each
- dynamic list (completed the task – erased, came up with a new one – wrote down)
- simple list (write only 1-2 tasks per day)
- write down everything that comes to mind during the day, and in the evening structure / distribute to thematic lists.
It’s best to have a specific time allotted for planning every day, it will help to form a habit that will effectively save time and systematize tasks.
I want to fight this expectation of a stress-free life, because it blocks the vision of those happy moments that already exist around us. Counting benefits is quite banal, but there is something in it.
Laura Vanderkam “I Know How She Does It. How Successful Women Make The Most of Their Time”
It’s also important to understand that no one is perfect, and no one can plan everything perfectly (the plan is a sketch of potential reality, but the picture will always be different due to circumstances beyond our control, because we are not able to control everything), and what time for you the most productive, what tasks you can delegate, what distracts you and how it can be eliminated, it all depends on what you actually plan.
You can also help yourself with timers, online calendars and specialized applications such as pomodoro, trello or toggle, record how your day goes to see where the time is going, think about what to fill with time when you have to wait (maybe instead of Facebook you could listen to an audiobook, TED, do duolingo or grab a notebook for diagrams and sketches, time can be used more valuable) – we do not have to follow strategies, but strategies help to use time more efficiently. Studies say that 10-12 minutes of planning helps to save at least 2 wasted hours.
And now let’s reread the epigraph above: we can’t do more than we can. And our rest is best included in the plan, too, no matter active or passive – the note is taken more seriously.
What is that one step, and in which area of your life, that can take your overall state to the next level?
I don’t have time’ means ‘It’s not a priority.’ We always have time for what matters to us.
Laura Vanderkam “I Know How She Does It. How Successful Women Make The Most of Their Time”
