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Time Management: How Many Hours Can You Fit In One Day?
Are you overwhelmed at how much work you need to accomplish in one day? Do the projects keep piling up in direct proportion to the number of distractions you have? Do you look at your list of things to do and wish it would just go away? Have you ever spent too much time trying to finish one project at the expense of letting other projects slide?
I think we all experience these situations at some point or another. If this is the case for you right now, then stop. Just stop. You’re going to drive yourself insane.
Stopping is exactly what James and I did a few weeks ago.
I know Jamie’s schedule – it’s crazy as hell. When he asked me to come up with a plan to help him organize his work time better, it made me pause to look at the way I had been working, too.
I knew I wasn’t the greatest at time management. I was constantly frazzled even though I didn’t have half the stuff on my plate that James did. Where he wasted time over-compensating, I wasted it hiding from the mountains I built up in my head. The more work I thought I had, the more intimidated I became.
Working 12 hours a day or pulling all-nighters are definitely not the way to go when you need to manage a huge workload. Both are extremes that you can easily avoid if you take a little time out to plan.
I set to the task of making a schedule for both James and myself. My feeling was that although we may not stick to a schedule 100% of the time, it was a start in the right direction. And the idea worked better than I thought it would. Here’s what I did:
- Get a Calendar. Whether you make a spreadsheet in Excel, use Google Calendar, or buy one of those big desk calendars to scribble on, have something in front of you that you can see every day. Decide the time you’ll start working and the time you’ll finish, and then write in blocks of tasks at different hours during the day. Consider this your rough sketch.
- Test Run. Try your new schedule for a day or two. Make adjustments that are more realistic. Don’t get frustrated if you can’t fit everything in.
- Set Realistic Goals. The biggest problem with time management is biting off more than you can chew. Start by giving each of your tasks a one-hour time block. When you’re ready, focus on that one task for that one hour and nothing else. You’ll be surprised how much you get done.
- Take Time to Make Time. At the end of each day or at the beginning of the next, set aside a few minutes to lay out your day. Look at what you didn’t finish yesterday. Put that in today’s daily schedule. Fill in the rest of your schedule with other tasks according to priority.
It might seem like you have a lot to do in the beginning, but remember you’re playing catch-up. Eventually it will all even out and you’ll have balance in your life again – you’ll also know what’s coming for the next couple of weeks too, and you’ll be able to plan your life a little better.
So far I’m following my own advice here and it’s working great. What are your tips for managing your time?
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I like to break my work up into manageable chunks with 20 minutes breaks in between. This keeps my eye fresh, and my kids happy.
I also like to take one day to do all of that week’s research. I save everything in a One Note Notebook and have it ready to go when the time come to write. This allows me to focus on my writing and helps avoid playing on the Internet when I should be writing.
I’ll frequently do my research the night before to have it all ready to go the next day. I’m telling you, this planning things out really works. The only problem is when I have huge chunks of time left over I wonder if there’s something I forgot. It’s an effort to walk away from the computer knowing it’s okay to leave something for tomorrow. If that’s the worst I have to get used to, it can’t be all that bad.
These are great tips for managing a busy schedule. I especially like #3. I think that a lot of freelancers end up burning the candle on both ends either because they don’t ask enough questions, or because they underestimate the amount of work to be done. One thing I discovered about pulling all-nighters – they are generally self-defeating in a very short time. What I mean is, after I’ve gone without sleep for a certain number of hours I find myself working much slower than I normally would. It can become a vicious cycle.
@Laura: Pulling all nighters was a nasty habit I picked up in college. In fact, it was often worn as a badge of honor among the students. I guess when you’re young you don’t see the effects as readily as you do later on in life. I mean, hey, I’m no doddering old geezer, but I’m far from what I was twenty years ago. That tactic is self-defeating and by the time you realize the toll it’s taking, it’s already too late.
My days cycle now. James is still trying to get me used to waking up early, and some days I don’t have a problem with it. Other days, I need an extra hour or two (although I believe he’s struck a deal with one of my cats to make sure I’m awake at 3 every morning). I just take it as it comes now, shift my schedule around a little and still manage to get everything done in a timely manner without feeling like I’m trying to pump water from a dry well.
I think it is better to make your daily schedule in the end of the day in comparion to do it in the morning. If you have a clear plan about the next day in your mind before you go to sleep then you can visulalize that day in your mind. When you wake up in the morning then you will know exactly what and when should you do. If you start planning your day in the morning then it you will spend the most productive working hours on it (at least for me the first hours in the morning are the best for quality work) and it is really difficult to get going if you do not know in the morning what you are supposed to do today
Kristjan-Olari Leping´s last blog ..Is time management for everyone?