A Wakeup Call For Grace With Time Management
Early this morning I woke myself up, knowing I had an appointment to get to. While showering (my favorite spot for reflection), I thought back over my last dream before waking…
My client had shown up and was circling my office looking for me. My gardener pointed him to the front door. My husband was home and I heard their voices when he opened the door. I was frantically getting ready and a part of me was chiding myself for having overslept.
Thankfully, it was just a dream, but also a wakeup call for me. Was it caused because I was overtired and wanted to sleep more? Was it a foretelling that my client would call and reschedule with me? (It could also be a connection with recently seeing the movie, Alice-in-Wonderland or maybe reading Sunday’s L.A. Times article, “Breaking Into Dreams” about the dream thriller film, Inception. Or maybe it was my recent comments added to the Women Entrepreneurs group on Linkedin around this question, “How do you balance work and life?”).
But more than likely it’s my own unresolved concerns about how I manage my time.
It’s a personal value of mine to find joy in all I’m doing and not wait till I have time off or less things scheduled on a certain day to enjoy life. Even so, it was refreshing not to have a busy weekend for a change, a rarity for my husband and I, since we spend much of our time with our families. There will be busier days than others and I recognize it’s more about how I am being with those events at the time that is the real “time effectiveness” component.
Life balance and time management are completely within our individual control. For example, you don’t have to take on that extra project or work somewhere that expects you to put in 12 hour days – it’s your choice. But if you do have to do those things on occasion, it’s about finding grace with it and working as fluidly with it as you can. Not resisting it or plodding painfully through it. And as my dream response reminds me, “leave the chiding aside.” Some helpful tips:
• If you are often overwhelmed because you’re doing too much, then you need to understand the power of prioritizing and that some things not only have to be removed temporarily, but permanently. Ask yourself if they are truly necessary and will add the definite benefits you seek.
• If you have perfectionism as a character trait, then schedule less projects in a day so you have time to revisit your work until you can learn to minimize this trait for it’s value attributes and trust what you can delegate to others.
• If you are easily distracted in your day, then you have to set a clear plan of action and stick with it to get your tasks done. If you feel you long for diversity, set an hour or two each day where you’ll have scheduled time for miscellaneous, unscheduled tasks.
• If you take too long on phone calls, with emails, etc., then you have to set a timer next to your computer or phone. Start with the most important always first, then address the rest.
• If you spend lots of time helping others and not getting to your work, then learning to say “no,” is what’s stopping you and a therapist might be someone to help you with this OR you are procrastinating doing your projects.
• If you procrastinate, then you need the help of a coach to help you stay on task and learn tools of focus and accountability.
In other words, you can manage your weakness(es) with time to be more effective in how you spend it. But ultimately you will be the time keeper. So if you find this causes work problems or time management is a concern you wrestle with on your own, stop and find your grace with it. Your life will be more enjoyable and less duty-full. It will also, I expect, cause you less worrisome dreams.
Tags: disruptive dreams, grace with choices, time effectiveness, Time Management
