ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PERSONAL TIME MANAGEMENT

Via books by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University and the New York Times bestselling author and books by Laura Vanderkam, an author of series of books about productivity.

The world is working against you. Do you know it? All things around us have their own agendas. And these agendas often involve us. All around us want our time. Your boss wants you to work more hours. Your partner wants to watch this movie together with you. Netflix wants you not to sleep but watch these new great series, and so on.

That’s a cool thought that so many people want something from me, finally feel not so lonely – right? Wrong, man! Because all these things usually have nothing to do with your wishes and happiness. If somebody’s agenda brings a happiness to you than like in films “Any apparent similarity to your interests is not intended by the author and is either a coincidence or the product of your imagination”.

If you followed every directive from your surroundings these days you’d quickly be broke, obese, and constantly distracted.

Want to achieve something? Or just want to be happy? Forge your happiness with your own hands because everybody else doesn’t give a shit. Sounds not so easy, but at least you have just one thing that you can and need to influence – it is your time.

1. Control your environment

Of course, we can’t control our environment everywhere. But we have more control than we think.

Environment matters. Business knows a lot about it. If you go to a cafe and the cafe is organized in one way, you will eat more. If it’s organized in a different way, you’ll eat less and go out quicker. We think that we make decisions on our own but the environment influences us to a great degree. Because of that, we need to think about how to change our environment.

What does research show the most productive programmers have in common? It’s not experience, salary, or hours spent on a project. Not even the amount of beer and coffee being drunk. They had employers who created an environment free from distraction.

You want a surrounding that makes the things you need to do easy and the things you shouldn’t do hard. What happened when Google put M&M’s in containers instead of out in the open? People ate 3 million less of them in one month.

And it’s not only about M&M’s. I feel it’s time to uninstall all games from the working notebook as well.

Okay, so you the master of your environment now. The boss is tied up so he can’t disturb you anymore. Time to manage your calendar!

2. How do you spend your time?

The first question you need to ask is “Where is my time actually going?” Not where you think it’s going, where is it actually going.

I don’t mean to lean back in that pretty chair and kinda sorta guessing about what you vaguely remember doing. Write down what you do for every hour of the day.

In some cases, it will be downright depressing. Ok, actually in most cases. But it works. You will become realistic about your time. You will understand that this small talk with a colleague usually takes not 5 mins but an hour. And that regular Monday 10 a.m. meeting is scheduled for an hour but it has never taken less than 90 minutes, then you need to be realistic and stop scheduling stuff for 11:00.

So you’ve spent some time crying after reading the time log, and now you’re ready to spend your hours better. What’s the next step? You need a plan.

3. day-plan

What did research from the Timeful app tell?

1. Most people don’t write down the things they need to do.
2. When you do write things down, you’re more likely to follow through on them.

Is it important? Write it down! Reminders, post-its, and calendars are all good tools.

Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker points to research showing that your calendar can make you happier: Take the things that make you happy and energized and schedule them more often.

Stupidly simple? It is. So keep it simple, stupid.

So you’ve written down everything that needs to get done. Should you just run down the list in order? Absolutely not. All hours are not created equal. You have a window of 2-2.5 hours of peak productivity per day, starting 2-3 hours after waking.

Those are the hours when you can do the most important and difficult projects. The things to change the life for the better. Like this article. But what did Dan find that most people did with those hours?
Email and Facebook.

Don’t be like the most people. You can do better! Another tip for planning your day: set limits. For example, say your working day is from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and plan all (ALL!!!) the working stuff in this time interval. After 6 p.m. – housework/family etc.

I can hear:“Hey, I’ve planned the day but it takes me 100500 hours to make everything done!” Time to cut down all unimportant things.

4. Eisenhower matrix

You feel good when you check a lot of things off your to-do list. But were they things that are most important and urgent? That’s what matters.

As the Eisenhower Matrix above reveals, just because something is urgent doesn’t mean it’s important.

And being important doesn’t necessarily mean it’s urgent.

It’s all too easy to put off important family time for urgent work deadlines.
If you’ve been neglecting your loved ones recently, work might be urgent but not important while a family is both important and urgent.

P.S.
You don’t need to account for every minute. You don’t need to agonize over wasted seconds. It’s just about improving. And none of us are infallible.

I struggle with work/life balance every day. Dan struggles too and he’s much more experienced than me. Laura hasn’t written about it but I assume she struggles as well. So nobody’s perfect. But with Dan’s and Laura’s tips we can all get better at managing our time.