You have 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in the week and you likely spend a good chunk of them asleep. Getting the most out of your waking hours is about getting clear on what your priorities are and organising your time around them. Organisation is not magic, it just makes life smoother.
1 Start with your goals
Get clear on what’s most important to you in the tangible future. Choose a timeframe that works best for you – you might prefer 12 months, 6 months, or even 3 months. Identify your top 3 priorities for this timeframe and how you will track your progress. Write these 3 priorities in big, colourful letters on a large piece of paper and stick it on your wall where you’ll see it every day. This will serve as a good reminder to keep your goals top of mind.
2 Know what’s important versus urgent
No matter what your job is you’re likely responding to what is most urgent whether it’s important or not. You become busy being busy. You may be spending way too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.
Of the 7 habits popularised by Stephen Covey, his “First Things First” approach to prioritising your efforts is most helpful. This simple little matrix helps you plan out where to spend your time most effectively.
To use the matrix, map out your tasks on a weekly or bi-weekly basis by placing them into the relevant boxes based on importance and urgency. If you’re like most of our Superheros, you might just have learnt that you spend a lot of your time fire-fighting and not much time on the stuff that matters to you most. So what do you do?
3 Schedule your priorities
Now you know your top 3 priorities, the key to being effective is to step back and re-focus your time and energy on doing tasks that help you work towards these goals. Proactively schedule “quality work” time to do activities that are important to you but not necessarily urgent. Block in two 45-60 minute sessions into your daily schedule, ideally at times when you feel most energetic. You may be surprised how much progress you can make towards your goals in just 120 minutes a day!