How to Manage Your Time
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.”
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Time. We all have the same amount of it – 168 hours each week to be exact – and yet so often we feel like we don’t have enough. And I get it. You’re a busy mom being pulled in one-thousand different directions. You feel stretched too thin. Maybe you’re overwhelmed by your mile long to-do list. The kids need fed, bathed, dressed, played with. You have back-to-back meetings, a presentation, and a deadline coming up at work. Then there’s spending quality time with your spouse, serving at church, working out, and whatever little self-care you can squeeze in.
We tend to think that if we could just do it all; somehow fit all that into our days; if there was just more time, then we would feel happy. Then we would feel balanced. But work-life balance isn’t about doing it all. It’s about doing the things that matter the most. If you haven’t already guessed it, today I want to chat about one of our most valuable resources – time.
Resources are featured prominently in the work-family research because it is our resources that allow us to successfully meet our demands from work and home. Resources are “objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies that are valued by the individual or that serve as a means for attainment of these objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies.” This last category, energies, consists of resources such as time, energy, and money.
Now, let’s look at the definition of work-life balance. Work-life balance is being engaged in, competent, and satisfied in our life roles, in accordance with our personal values. You know what’s missing from that definition? It says nothing about trying to “do it all”. It also doesn’t mention anything about needing to be super efficient, or productive, or perfect. Instead, we will experience balance when we are doing what matters (see that part about “in accordance with our personal values”?).
So, let’s talk about how you can manage your time well. And by manage your time, I mean learning to spend it on the right things.
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Prioritization
Peter Drucker, one of the most influential thinkers on management, says it so well: “There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.” How often do you find yourself spending time of things that don’t really need to be done at all? Whenever I feel like I’ve got a million things to do, one of my favorite practices is to do a brain dump, essentially create a list of everything that I feel like I need to do. It always amazes me what my brain likes to hold onto. My list might look something like:
- Preorder that new book
- Feed the kids
- Stop at Marshalls to look at their new spring collection
- Submit that revision to the journal
- Plan the vacation that we’re going to go on in Spring 2023
- Pick up the kids from school
- Clean out my pantry
A lot of times the list is longer than that, but you can already see… some of those are not like the others. By writing everything down, it gets it out of my head and onto paper where I can much more easily identify the things that matter (i.e., picking up and feeding my kids) and the things that don’t (i.e., cleaning out my pantry or stopping at Marshalls). I do this almost daily and then use the long “brain-dump” list to help me identify the top three priorities of my day.
Let go of perfection
Perfection is a major work-life balance killer. When we are aiming for perfection in our roles as mothers, employees, wives, and friends, we often end up spending WAAAAY too much time on the minute details that don’t really move the needle forward; on things that don’t really have a very big impact on our lives. When I was in grad school, one of my colleagues shared some invaluable advice and it has stuck with me to this day: “Don’t kill yourself to get the 100%. A 90% is still an A. It’s not worth your time to go above and beyond.”
Pareto’s Law or the 80/20 principle applies here. This principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. We can apply this principle to managing our time. I know it may be tough for all you perfectionists out there (I get it, as I’m a recovering perfectionist), but this principle essentially tells us that 20% of our efforts are the driving force behind 80% of our performance. If you can accept less than perfect performance (i.e., 80%) and identify those key efforts driving performance (i.e., 20%), then you can cut out a significant amount of time spent on tasks; leaving more time for other things that matter to you.
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Pomodoro approach
One of my favorite tools to keep myself focused on the task at hand, and thus not wasting time on unnecessary distractions, is the Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro technique is a time management method that breaks tasks down into small bursts of focused work followed by a break. Typically, you would work for 25 minutes then take a break for 5 minutes. After four intervals of this, you take a longer, 15-minute break.
I love using this approach when I’m writing research papers. Writing a 40-page research paper can feel terribly daunting and because of that, I tend to procrastinate by scrolling social media, answering emails, or any other task I can come up with that day. But, I can get my head around 25 minutes of writing. I’ll set my timer on my phone and then work against the clock.
You might not be able to use this approach with every single task you’re faced with, but it can be extremely helpful in increasing your focus and productivity in short bursts. Work has a tendency to expand and fill the time allotted to it. That’s why this method works – you’re constraining the work to short 25-minute intervals.
How much is your time worth?
Finally, it’s important to understand that sometimes tasks simply aren’t worth your time – even if they are important. I struggled with this one for a long time (and sometimes still do). I was raised in a small, rural community where if you were capable of doing things, you did them yourself. However, now that I’m working full-time in a professional setting and raising two kids, there are things that simply aren’t worth my time, even if I am fully capable. Put another way, they’re not important enough for me to spend my time on.
Have you ever considered what an hour of your time is worth? A simple way to calculate this is to take your annual income and divide it by the number of hours you work. For example, say you make $100,000 per year and work 40 hours per week. You would take $100,000 divided by 2080, which equals about $48 per hour. If you know that your time is worth $48 dollars an hour, it helps you make decisions about how to best use your time. Maybe it’s worth the $30/week to have a yard service come and maintain your lawn. Or maybe it’s worth the extra money to utilize a meal delivery service so that you don’t have to spend time meal-planning or grocery shopping. It’s not a perfect tool but putting a dollar amount on your time can help guide your decisions about what to spend your time on and what to delegate to others.
Hey! Before you go, I wanted to invite you to my FREE 5-Day Closet Cleanout Challenge. It may not seem obvious, but having a closet that you love to open each and every morning can have a big impact on your work-life balance. It starts on April 4th and I’d love to see you there! You can sign up at www.kayleehackney.com/closet. I’ll share the link in the show notes!
Is a better work-life balance one of your goals this year?
I’ve created a workbook just for you!
If you’re interested in creating a work-life balance characterized by simplicity, joy, and beauty, why don’t you start by checking out my Elegant Balance Workbook? In it, I help you define what work-life balance looks like for you and share some tips on creating that balance. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it – Balance doesn’t happen by accident.
What are you waiting for?
Let’s pursue our Elegant Balance together!
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We spend a great deal of time at work. Like Annie Dillard once said, “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” I encourage you to look around your office and see what steps you can take to add simple luxuries to your workday because in the grand scheme of things, they will add up and lead to a luxurious life!