A lot of people ask me about time management and planning ahead in order to stay on track despite all the “busyness” we claim to have in our lives. I was at church one weekend before I moved from California to Austria (so over 6 years ago now) and the pastor quoted something really amazing. I can’t remember the EXACT quote, so this is my paraphrasing the idea:
Busyness is the thief of intimacy. You can have one or the other, but not both.
That resonated with me so much and I absolutely lit up inside whenI heard him say that! We want our life to have deeper meaning, feel more connected, content, confident, happy, strong and vibrant…but we don’t take the time to slow down and DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY in order to have intimacy with our Creator, the universe, in our relationships and with our dream life overall.
One MAJOR realization that changed my life: being crazy busy isn’t “cool” and needing to slow down isn’t something to be ashamed of.
Crazy HAPPY, crazy HEALTHY, crazy in LOVE, crazy BEAUTIFUL, crazy DANCING…we love that kind of crazy! If you wanna connect with women, just like you, who are consistently working towards their dream life step by step, you can join our Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Membership Program and try it out for only $1 using the code SELFLOVE1.
7 tips to get more organized and own YOUR schedule
1. Ask yourself: Is my method working?
Are you already calendaring? If so, how? Is it working for you? This is a VERY important point that must be addressed first. Like are you already making a calendar and using SOME method to stay organized and on top of your game? If you ARE – awesome…you can spend some time figuring out if that method is serving you or not… you’ll know and you must be honest. If you’re not…you definitely to spend some more time on #2!
2. Time audit yourself
When people come to me telling me that they don’t have enough time and need help, tips, advice, etc. My first question is: WTF are you doing throughout the day? Like I wanna know EXACTLY what you’re doing…and then I can help 🙂
Do you ever have days where you’re like…”I spent all day running around like a crazy person, but I can’t really think of anything I accomplished that I am really proud of.” How many hands are raised? SO many of my VIP coaching clients come to me feeling that way.
If you’ve never calendared before, or if you’re calendar runs your world a time audit is always an awesome place to start. Get a piece of paper or a calendar or a note on your phone and start to write down every single thing that you’re doing and the time. Do this for a few days so you can look back and see where you’re getting the most off track and the most distracted. If you can identify and move passed those moments of distraction and keep on track, you’ll end up finishing what you need to and with a better outcome.
I don’t know about you, but I want more free time – and time auditing (aka calling yourself out) is the way to do it.
3. Define the format you want to calendar
Do you want to keep it the same as you’ve been doing it? Do you want to switch it up? I used to ALWAYS be a paper calendar girl until I started working in the office at Runtastic where everything is digital. I switched to a digital calendar I can access from both my computer and my phone, and it’s super convenient for me. But if you’re a paper person – I totally get it and GO FOR IT! Right now in my life, I am kind of going for a little bit of both. Digital is obviously much more convenient when I am collaborating with my team and online coaching clients.
4. Schedule YOU first!
Prayer, workout, meditation, massage, walk, workout, epsom salt (magnesium) bath, go for an infrared sauna….whatever you’re doing to charge up your body, mind & soul needs to go into your calendar first. This doesn’t mean that you have to do it first thing in the morning…but put it in your calendar before anything else goes in there. Train yourself to understand that it is SO IMPORTANT it must go in there first.
5. Fill in the rest & test
And then, after you’ve finished filling in this time to prepare for your day…you’ll need to put everything (yes EVERYTHING) else you plan on doing in your calendar. You can do it as scheduled appointments or as blocked out time to work on a particular goal or project. Then you have to test it to see if it even works for you.
There have been times when I have mapped out my calendar and schedule and I thought it was absolutely perfect…until I started living it. I realized there were parts of my day that were dragging on, I wasn’t feeling my best when it was time to REALLY focus and use my brain and it was making me feeling like a failure. So instead of FORCING myself to continue on this path – I ripped it up and started over. After all, it’s MY calendar… right?
6. Honor your calendar
If you don’t honor your time, no one else will. Trust me. Don’t let people continually set you back a half hour or set you off your game. And make sure the people that you’re working with internally and externally know you’re working with an amazing calendar system and when you say a time, you mean it 🙂 This is really powerful so people aren’t stealing too much of your time…usually on accident.
7. Set priorities & be open to change
Days get twisted and turned, so make sure you have your MAIN PRIORITIES in focus so that way when there are “those days” you clearly know what should be tackled first.
