Where Does the Time Go?

"Either you run the day, or the day runs you." Jim Rohn

There is a strange thing about time. There are moments where time flies by, and there are other moments where it feels like time is taking forever. Yet, time is always passing at the same rate.

There are weeks that pass leaving you feeling productive and accomplished. And then there are weeks that pass where you question where the time went, having nothing to show at the end.

The way you manage your time has a lot to do with how you experience time. When you are organized and scheduled, you move through the day feeling prepared and confident. When you approach the day without a plan, it is easy to fall victim to time. The biggest imposter is distraction.

The world around us is filled with distractions, phones pinging, pop up ads, emails, text messages, oh my! For every random thought you have, there is a new internet tab. I have yet to mention the crying child in the background, the plumber at door, the dryer beeping, need I say more.

It is easy to get thrown off track, so your plan for the day needs to be fool proof. 

Start by knowing your vulnerabilities, so you can plan for them. For example, if you are glued to their phone, schedule in time to check notifications throughout the day. Cluster your to-do items that fit well together. For instance, if you are expecting a repair person to your home, first confirm the window of time they should be arriving and ask for a 20-minute call ahead. Assuming the requests are honored, then you can plan to complete mindless household tasks to complete while you are waiting for them to arrive, and then again while they assess (and hopefully fix the problem).

Create a physical landing page to gather all of your random thoughts and curiosities that come up during your day. Writing them down signals to the brain it can release the thought, rather than trying to retain it. The thought is secure on paper, so you don't have to worry about having to remember it. At the same time, you aren't entertaining the thought in live time, distracting you from where your attention needs to be.

Another time-management strategy is to redesign your daily to-do list by dividing it into two categories:

• The Must Do's

• The Hope To's

By having this list created, it is easy to make use of small pockets of time as they come up throughout the day. Perhaps a Zoom meeting is running late by ten minutes? Well, in those ten minutes you could - wash the dishes, throw in the load of laundry, return one or maybe even two phone calls, or arrange the Fed Ex pick-up for packages. When the to-do list is not available, you often float through the ten minutes, scrolling through social media or goofing around online. At the end of the day, you have a pile of things to get to including the laundry, the dishes, the email, the phone calls, the mail pile, and the list goes on. Give this a shot, and you will be STUNNED at how much you can accomplish in ten minutes.

For organization and routine, the biggest bang for your buck is a consistent sleep-wake cycle. Set your alarm in the morning AS IF you are getting up to be in the office on time. If your work circumstances have not changed, you may feel very positive about your sleep and wake times. However, if you have been out of work or are working from home, it is likely that you are less rigid about your bedtime, and the time you get going in the morning. Staying up later into the evening night after night naturally changes your motivation to get going early in the morning. Instead, you find yourself hitting snooze, and are then chasing the day to make up for lost time.

Keep in mind, not every moment has to be planned. There is value in enjoying the moment and having time to do whatever makes you happy. With most people, it is much easier to fully embrace those moments without any guilt, when they have been productive during the week.