Planning Your Future: Takes Planning
Time is often seen as the villain; it’s either chasing us, or we are chasing it, so lets take the sting out of it by changing how we view time.
The pressures from feeling there is never enough time in one day to do everything are enormous. Then we add the feeling of guilt and frustration for not accomplishing what we hopped to do over the course of a day. That big life changing goal or project now seems even more difficult to accomplish. What now?
The truth is, time doesn't have it in for us.
The truth is, a lack of time is never our problem. We just think it is.
The truth is, we are never realistic with our estimation and understanding of time.
The truth is, we don’t prioritise what we want to achieve.
It’s a question of how important something is to us, or, put another way, we are in the habit of choosing to prioritise other things over our ambition, our success, our desires for something new.
Ironically, reframing our attitude towards time, takes time, but a quick and easy starting place is to use a skill we already possess; scheduling.
The Importance of Scheduling
Scheduling is the art of planning activities and to kick-start our goal, it’s an essential skill that you have most likely underestimated, until now. Your to-do list is the place where you define and organise what you’re going to do. Your calendar is used to identify when you’re going to do those things and how much time is needed to complete them. Here’s how:
5 Easy Steps to Scheduling Your Future
Identify the time you have available in the average day & week. So estimate how much time you spend sleeping, commuting, doing school drop offs & homework, cooking, working & any other essential life-stuff. Tot-up the total.
Review your list of essential life-stuff and identify any tasks that can be delegated, outsourced, reduced in frequency or cut altogether from your weekly schedule for the time your goal or project has. Recalculate the total.
Identify the time needed for the
Sig project. Identify any nice-to-have activities
Such as holidays, date nights, friends, exercise and hobbies etc. and how much time you spend weekly on these things
Would like to keep for the duration of the project - these becomes non-negotiable. I recommend always having some time out, to ensure friendships and relationships do not suffer.
Use a calendar (what ever format works for you) and plug in essential life-stuff, big project tasks, and your non-negotiables.
Review weekly & set a time to assess what you have on in the following week. See what you have ahead & what needs to be added and removed
Why using a calendar works
Calendar stops the sense of not knowing what to do next
Calendar acts as a reminder
Calendar acts as a filter against distractions - focuses on priorities
Calendar shows if you can take on any more
Calendar acts as a reminder of what you have achieved over the month
When you schedule time for tasks in your calendar, you’re literally making time for work, for you and for your goal.
Easy Way to Create a Shift in Attitude
This process also starts to reframe your attitude towards time as you learn to:
Be realistic & honest about what is important to you
Ask for help from others
Learn to say no - avoid taking on more than you can handle
Work towards your own future
Time is the one resource that we can't buy, but we often waste it or use it ineffectively. Scheduling helps you think about what you want to achieve in a day, week, or month, and it keeps you on track to accomplish your goals.
