I was scanning my mess of an email inbox recently when a message caught my eye. HELP! BoxTop volunteers needed this Wednesday!, I read. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the message and saw the latest, urgent plea from our PTA fundraising coordinator. This time she was asking (begging?) for volunteers to come help her and a few other moms painstakingly sort and bag BoxTops to redeem at ten cents a pop to raise money for my daughter’s elementary school. From the sounds of the email, she had literally hundreds—maybe thousands—to sort through. On some weird level, I felt a twinge of envy at the thought of having enough margin in my day to dedicate to sorting and bagging BoxTops. God bless those women. I shook my head instead and pressed delete. “Ain’t nobody got time for that,” I muttered to myself.
I always crack up when I hear that phrase. It reminds me of the viral YouTube video Daniel Tosh aired on his show once of a woman named Sweet Brown who was being interviewed about an apartment fire. She made the hilarious, now iconic, statement when describing the effects of the smoke inhalation. “I got bronchitis,” she lamented. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
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The funniest things are often true, aren’t they? As a mom, I know I’m not alone in sometimes feeling like I don’t have enough hours in the day. I’ve discovered recently, however, that telling yourself you don’t have time for something is nothing more than a limiting belief. Don’t give me the judge-y eyebrows! It’s a true statement. Not convinced? OK, allow me to back up and start with something easier. Raise your hand if you have a maximum of 24 hours in a day.
Oh, look at that! We’re all raising our hands.
You, me, the President—we all have the exact same number of seconds, minutes and hours to work with each day. That’s a universal truth we can all agree on, yes? So what’s our deal? Why do some women seemingly always have time to exercise, serve their families home-cooked meals, volunteer, work and straighten their hair, while others . . . don’t? Do those fit, working, cooking, volunteering, smooth-haired women have time turners?
Nope. That’s just the limiting belief rearing its head. Truth?
When we say we don’t have time for something, what we’re really saying is, “I choose not to make that a priority.” It really is that simple. It’s a choice. Time invested in one area is time away from another.
Makes sense, right? None of us can be in two places at once (unless, of course, Dumbledore did indeed give you a time turner). Once we understand that we get to decide what we make a priority in our lives, we can take command of our schedules from a place of power.
And a little game plan never hurt anyone, right? Check out my top 3 tips for getting the most bang for your buck—er, minute—every day:
Tip #1: Time Block.
Did reading that just make your brain hurt? Stay with me. I promise this habit isn’t painful. Although “time blocking” sounds rigid and camp-counselor-clipboardy, it’s actually quite freeing.
To begin, I intentionally sit down with myself once a week, usually on Sunday evenings, and do a complete mental dump. There’s nothing fancy or structured about it. I take out a spiral notebook, put pen to paper, and write down everything that’s on my mind. And when I say everything, I mean eh-vry-thin-guh. Texts I have to respond to or send. Grocery shopping. Books I want to read. Appointments I need to make. Items I signed up to provide for the PTA or my kiddos’ classrooms. Little things that are weighing on me—sometimes I’ll literally write, “Figure out how to accomplish X.” I just write and write until I feel still. What I’m left with is a very relevant to-do list that will guide how I spend my time—and what will go in my time blocks—during the upcoming week.
The key to effective time blocking is being crystal clear on your priorities—your “big rocks,” as the metaphor goes.
Knowing mine, I’m able to quickly go back through the mental-dump list and put an “A” next to the items I must do. “A” tasks, as a prerequisite, must be lead dominoes that, once accomplished, will knock down all the other dominoes in their rows. I put a “B” next to the items I should do and a “C” next to the items I’d merely like to do.*
From there, the time blocking is simple. The “A” tasks go onto my calendar first. Then the “B” where there’s room, and then the “C.” Do all of the “C” tasks make it on to the calendar every week? Nope, and I don’t sweat it. They’ll be there next week. Bonus? If I get some margin in my day, I know exactly how to fill it.
Still wondering how you’ll make time to get your squat on and serve your family home-cooked meals? You may want to seriously consider outsourcing.
Tip # 2: Only Give Your Best Yes.
In other words, only commit your time if you’ll be making the best use of your gifts. Sorting through BoxTops? Not my best yes. That’s why I said no. OK, fine, I did what most people do and I didn’t respond. But by (essentially) saying no, I allowed someone else to give her best yes.
Take my neighbor and dear friend, Lara. She’s a BoxTop-sorting ninja. She can also throw a party that would rival anything (and I do mean anything) you could ever find on Food Network or HGTV combined, and she can actually enjoy herself as hordes of people traipse through her house, probably spilling wine and definitely dropping crumbs everywhere as they nosh on delicious morsels from the menu she created.
Clearly, she and I have different strengths. By saying yes to our strengths and no to everything else, we each add value to the world in distinct but necessary ways. And more importantly, instead of being mediocre at everything and making a merely neutral impact, we are laser-focused on our wheel houses and make very powerful, positive impacts.
I do have one exception to the Best Yes Rule, and it applies when you want to get better at something and make an unknown part of your known. You mos’ def’ can’t grow inside your comfort zone, and time spent getting uncomfortable to become a better version of yourself is always time well-spent. Always.
Tip # 3: Don’t React.
This, my friends, is where stuff gets real. I react way more often than I’d like to admit. I’ll be sitting in my home office, serenely getting ready to start the tasks I’ve time blocked for that precise moment. I’m relaxed in the knowledge that I’m powerful, blessed, anointed, ready to create—squirrel! Uh oh. My iPhone just notified me that I have a text. What do I do now?
In that moment, I can choose to stay in my place of power, not react, and honor my time block.
Or I can allow my iPhone to dictate my next move. In other words, I can react to the text and respond. And if I do that, you know what’s going to happen next. I’m going to get sucked into a vortex of distraction that will likely end with me scrolling through Facebook and wondering how the heck I ended up there. And worst of all, I’ll have made marginal, if any, progress on the task I promised myself I would tackle in that time!
My rec? Remember who’s boss. (Um, that’d be you). You are the director of your attention. Step into your power and decide how you spend your day. Be intentional with the time you’ve guarded on your calendar. I’m pretty sure you don’t have any calendar entries entitled, “Play on social media” or “Get sucked into mass family texting,” so hold yourself accountable for that time and do what you said you were going to do.
And if you need some assistance, you’re in luck. There’s this awesome little feature on all phones called “Do Not Disturb” and it is legit. You can even customize it so that your phone will still ring if one of your “Favorite” contacts is trying to call you. I have both my kids’ schools saved as Favorites, and I feel secure knowing that if some other kid whacks mine in the head with a Badminton racquet I’ll still find out about it even when I’m in Do Not Disturb mode.
No excuses! Turn that sucker on, flip your phone face down and create before you consume.
All doable, right? Give me a shout! I’d love to hear how these tips work for you. Email me at nikki@livingthephoenixdiaries.com.
*I can’t take all the credit for this ingenious system. I learned a lot of how to manage my time from using the Living Well Spending Less Planner.