3 Key Time Management Rules Brought To You By The Letter E
In addition to being the most used letter in the English language, the letter E is used in the LaserBrainTM method for Employ Good “Time Hygiene”. This is especially key for business owners who want to run a successful business and still have time for love and joy outside their work too.
The more necessities you can accomplish in a shorter period of time, the more hours you open up for loved ones and more fun.
But what does good “time hygiene" look like?
Financial planning, surprisingly enough, can provide a clue. Planners often advise you to think of your money as working for you and not the other way around. (Your business should be the same way, incidentally.) One way you can make sure that happens is to give each dollar of income a “job”.
You plan ahead of time for what the month looks like: assign dollars to your bills and savings, and then you can assign for other duties (including a “fun” fund or ”vacation” fund.) That way you waste less money on frivolities that you don’t really need, and you’re building your savings to invest as well.
You’ve got 1,440 minutes each day (60 minutes per hour * 24 hours). You can allocate those minutes however you like, and by planning ahead you’ll be able to avoid wasting precious time. None of us are going to live forever, so those minutes will run out eventually.
Good time hygiene helps you decide how much time to spend on various activities, and also how to optimize those minutes for the life you want to lead. If you want more “life” in your work-life balance, you need to allocate those minutes first and stick to your time plan.
Time Management Hygiene Tip #1: Necessities first
Just like when you’re preparing a budget for yourself or your business, you cover the most important items first. With a money budget this often includes rent/mortgage, utilities, food, and the like. Once those are satisfied, you move on to entertainment and other less critical categories.
It’s sometimes harder to figure out what’s important in a time budget. And some of the items might surprise you. Since you’re a knowledge worker, you rely mostly on your brain. Given that, keeping your brain healthy and productive is a necessity, not a luxury.
Good time hygiene includes enough time to:
Get enough sleep (about 480 minutes every night) so that your brain and body can recover and build
Ingest nutritious food
Move your *ass (at the absolute barest minimum, not less than 30 minutes a day)
Take rest breaks DURING the work day - resting from complex tasks helps your brain “sharpen the saw”
Spend time with loved ones (and liked ones too), which will be a bit less for most introverts and a bit more for most extroverts
Enjoy hobbies and other activities
Of course, some of these can be combined. Going out to lunch with friends can bring you nutritious food, time with liked ones (if not loved ones), plus a rest break for your brain.
Yet it’s not just these “unproductive” productivity boosters that should be allocated in a good time hygiene plan. It’s also critical that you, the business owner, prioritize the necessary tasks during the workday. Not everything in your business needs to be done by you.
If you have a to-do list that hasn’t been prioritized, and you’re just going through the list item by item, you’re probably wasting a lot of time on tasks that aren’t really necessary.
Time Management Hygiene Tip #2: Optimizing energy is more important than filling up your calendar
Our brains are not computers, and likewise, computers aren’t brains. Computers don’t have energy fluctuations throughout the day like our brains do. A computer can run financial projections at any time of day.
But your brain has only a roughly four-hour period when it’s best at complex tasks, such as financial projections, crunching numbers, working in spreadsheets, and strategizing campaigns. Allocating work minutes to these types of tasks during the time of day when you’re best able to handle the work is how you optimize for energy.
Administrative items, emails, and calls are left for time outside your complex work block when you have good time hygiene.
Time Management Hygiene Tip #3: Protect your time and energy
Everyone has a lot of demands on their time, whether it’s people asking for things or the flood of information from our phones to social media. However, when you allow these to take over time that you’ve planned for other things, or didn’t plan at all, they’re now in control of your time.
Not you.
That means for good time hygiene it’s important to know what your boundaries are and hold them. For example, when you;re working on complex activities, you need uninterrupted focus time to get them done quickly and accurately. That may mean you have to close your door, turn off all notifications, and set your calendar to “do not disturb”.
Or if you’ve decided the workday ends at 5 pm, you’ll want to avoid emailing anyone after this time. It’ll also be helpful to let vendors, clients, etc. know upfront that your company’s day is over at 5 pm and no one (including you) is available after that time.
It might mean that you institute “office hours” when you’re available, so no one interrupts you while you;’re focusing or having important meetings. Being available to your staff does not mean your door should be open 24/7.
You might find yourself saying “no” more often. And that’s perfectly OK. Good time hygiene means you’re much less likely to burn out, because you’ve allocated time to rest and recharge. Burnout is common when you say “yes” to everything that’s asked of you and other people run your schedule.
Recap (tl;dr):
Employing good time hygiene helps you improve your work-life harmony while still running a thriving business. Allocating your time to keep you and your brain healthy not only makes you more productive, but can help you avoid burnout.
Want some more help with implementing good time hygiene so you can increase the “life” in your balance? Click here to set up your free consultation.
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash.