In this day and age (how old do I sound!?) it’s so easy to lose track of time. How many time have you picked up your phone to have a quick look on Instagram and half an hour later you’re still there listening to someone’s stories on what they just bought from Primark? Or months deep into a new bloggers page you just found (or worse an ex or exes new partner!? I don’t have this thank god for dating pre social media). Or you’ve nipped on Facebook and suddenly you’ve spent half an hour watching funny cat videos? I think we’ve all done it time and time again and it often means we can easily not think about time management and easily forget how we can make the most of the time we have in a day, be it at work/uni or at home.
This post started to be one on organisation but I soon realised it was more complex than that:
What’s the biggest excuse for not implementing something at work?
Time.
I don’t have the time to do it that way, I don’t have the time to learn, I don’t have the time to change.
So we all have the same amount of hours in the day as Beyoncé right!? Her time management must be on point!? However we don’t have her money so we ain’t paying for a personal shopper to shop for our clothes instead we’re spending hours on ASOS (just me!?!) or a stylist to figure how to put it together, or a makeup artist, or a nanny, an assistant, etc etc etc. So for me it’s about not comparing yourself to others and more about how you use those hours to the max.
Focus on the Rocks not Sand
You may have heard or seen this analogy before, but imagine a large empty jar- this represents your time at work. Firstly fill it with rocks. These represent big projects, large scale tasks you know the ones you usually procrastinate over (completely speaking about myself here lol).
Now keep the rocks in and fill it with pebbles. These are your medium size tasks something that takes some time but not a huge thing to achieve and something you’ll usually tick off your to do list fairly easily. They managed to fit themselves in quite nicely alongside all those larger projects didn’t they?
Now keep the rocks and the pebbles in the jar- and fill it with sand. The sand represents tiny work that’s often around in volume, so think emails, small quick tasks and general admin things. The idea behind it is that your time was full with the rocks, then the pebbles managed to squeeze themselves in and your jar still appeared full, then the god damn sand got everywhere all over the joint and filled in every single crevice of the jar (just like it does on the blooming beach lol).
Those small things take up all the time, so you need to think about how you apply a new way of time management to your life to stop the sand getting everywhere and fill your time with projects that will move the dial or get you recognition you deserve. Or both.
Outfit Info:
- Top £12.99 New Look
- Tailored Linen Casual Shorts £22 Asos Tall
- Stripe Sandals £32 River Island(£22 ASOS on sale!)
- Tropical Necklace £7.99 New Look
- Earrings £4.99 New Look (can’t find online but bought on store last week!)
- Flower Posy 50p from the House next door to this one
Heres how I’ve done it in a few quick steps:
- Turn off email pop ups- stop distractions
- Set times to answer emails and tick off the sand
- Use time islands in your diary to put time aside for bigger projects that need thinking time
Ive found I’ve released so much time by just thinking differently about things and stopping myself tackling all the small things just to tick them off the list! I’d love to know how you use time management in your life below! I’ll be expanding on this next post talking about list making so shout up with any queries and I’ll try and answer them!