Procedures for Peace: Time Management pt. 1
If there is one thing every single one of my clients wants to know, it is how to get more done.
In my onboarding questionnaire, I have a question: “Which areas of your business feel sticky at the moment?” with a bunch of checkboxes, such as Client Experience and Launch Management. Without fail, my clients cite time and project management as problems. This excites me, because this is the problem I love to work with most!
Here’s the secret to time management. You must know yourself and set yourself up for success. We’ve all been sold this idea that if we just learn the perfect system for being productive all the time, we’ll magically get 100 things done every day and accomplish all our goals. It is 100% possible to accomplish all your goals. But not if you’re trying to fit yourself into a vision of productivity that isn’t realistic for you.
Let’s talk about one of my favorite real-life examples of the way setting yourself up for success is the key to being productive. When I first started working with client B, she felt like she was always behind on client work, and could never put any energy into building her own business because it was all she could do to keep her current clients happy. She was in this cycle of barely working until the end of the week, when she would work for 10 hours straight on Friday, trying to catch up and feeling ashamed when she didn’t catch up. She was burnt out, ashamed, and overwhelmed. Over time, we realized a few things. 1. During her luteal phase, it was incredibly difficult to get any work done. 2. She does best with intense, focused work sessions. 3. She needed some level of pressure in order to get work done. We tried a lot of different things to support her with these issues and finally settled on a good schedule. We don’t expect her to get any work done during her luteal phase. If she feels like getting ahead or working on her own business, great! If not, we’re not going to pressure her to get anything done. In addition, each day that she is on, she’s expected to get one medium/large task done. Once she gets that thing done, she can log off or choose to work more. We also look at said task as now or never; she doesn’t get to just push it off day after day. If it doesn’t get done today, she moves to the next thing on her list till the following week. This mindset helps create the pressure she needs to get stuff done, without having to be down to the wire with every deadline. After working this way for a while, she is consistently on top of her client work and able to take on a few things for her own business development each month. She also has time and energy to put into her personal relationships and creative pursuits. Has she reached every goal she’s ever had for her life & business? No. But she’s gone from being burnt out on business ownership to having a clear path forward that she’s excited to walk, because she can enjoy the journey. THIS is the magic of creating a schedule that actually works for you. It’s not that she’s 10x’d her output. It’s that she is able to show up with her version of consistency, feeling flow in her work, and enjoying the process. She knows she’ll meet her goals eventually, and she gets to enjoy the journey there, rather than drowning in misery overworking herself to maybe reach that goal a little faster.
So now you’re probably wondering, how do I do that myself? Step 1 is getting to know yourself.
Get to know your rhythms
If you are a person who journals or tracks yourself in any way, I recommend you start keeping track of the following things to understand the way your energy flows.
If you menstruate, track your menstrual cycle. I used to think that my cycle was very irregular because I only loosely tracked my cycle in an app, and only noted when I was in my menstrual phase, and nothing else. This made each period feel like a horrible surprise, and the ebbs and flows of my energy throughout my cycle seemed totally random. What I’ve found now that I’ve started regularly tracking my cycle is that my monthly energetic cycles are actually fairly predictable. In my late menstrual/early follicular phase, I feel on top of the world, I get lots of acne and am more irritable in my ovulatory phase, and in my luteal phase, I often wake up feeling like I got hit by a bus. When I know this, I can begin to plan my work and life around my cycle. It also helps because whenever I go into a doctor’s office, and they ask about my cycle, I can actually answer them accurately, instead of just saying “I don’t know!”
Track the moon & common astrology transits. Many people will think this is a little woo-woo, but once you start paying attention, you’ll see how powerful it really is. I regularly track the phase of the moon and notice certain patterns. For example, I often take the exact day of eclipses off because I’ve noticed that I often have a big emotional revelation on these days that I need time to process. Or if not, I at least feel extra tired and out of sorts. No one wants me to answer emails in such a state! I recommend noticing the luminaries (sun and moon), and the faster-moving planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. You may not have control over how these transits affect you, but you CAN start to give yourself more grace when they do. I recommend the Chani App to get a quick view of all transits going on and a positive framing on how you can use these transits to your advantage
Track your energy through the week. This is a little more nebulous, but I recommend noticing which days you feel fired up and ready to work, versus those when it feels like a struggle to pay attention and sit down at your desk. For instance, I always feel a little low-energy on Mondays. So these days I just take it off and spend time on creative projects and personal development. Before, I would always leave a ton of work on my plate to complete on Mondays, and the day would be a battle of trying to get into the work-week while also a mad dash to finish everything I had before my meeting day on Tuesdays. Now, I finish my work on Fridays, and if I have anything extra to catch up on, I do that during the weekend. I usually find that this is easier than fighting against myself to get stuff done on Mondays.
Track your energy through the day. Are you more able to focus in the morning, afternoon, or evening? I am most able to focus on work in the morning. So instead of jumping into my inbox first thing, my clients know they won’t hear from me till the end of the day. I spend the morning with my head down on creative projects, writing, content creation, etc. Then, in the afternoon, I jump into my inbox, customer service projects, data entry, etc. Because that’s when my brain is more curious and able to switch energy more quickly.
By knowing yourself, you can begin to build your schedule around the way you truly work, instead of planning around some magical version of yourself you think you could become if you just push hard enough. I promise you that even if it’s hard for other people to understand initially, they will be so thrilled that you made this change because you will be more productive, and more importantly, happier. Instead of procrastinating and trying to fight yourself to get something done. Things will start to FLOW!
P.S. This is only pt. 1 of my Time Management series. After you’ve had a chance to track your energy over the next month, we’ll talk about how to structure your schedule and set boundaries that allow you to actually create the flow you’re dreaming of!
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