Time Management: Triumphs and Frustrations

I have a confession to make: while I am a good prioritizer, I am awful at time management. Like, awful. And I don’t know why…

Ok, I have an inkling as to the why of it. One, I’m meticulous with tasks I undertake. Translation: I’m slow. I’m thorough, but I’m slow. Two, I overestimate my ability to start a project and stay on topic throughout the time I allot. Three, I underestimate the amount of time I need to complete my work. Because of points one and two there. And four, I’m only on target with my stamina 50% of the time.

All of that added up together makes for a largely unproductive and frustrated Elisa. I have lofty ambitions and yet I am my own worst enemy. It seems like whenever I have things I want to do I can’t seem to get myself in gear. Yet when it comes to work –when it came to school– I do and did what needed to be done no matter what.

Figuring that last aspect out will require more than a blog post. I have a niggling suspicion it all has to do with my habits, but I’m not quite ready to confront that part of my psyche yet. I’m staying willfully ignorant for the time being.

While thinking about this blog post and my problem, I started to wonder if there were parallels I could apply from other aspects of my life to the principals of time management. Again it came down to non-negotiable tasks that have turned into habits. In a way.

Money management was the first thing that came to mind. I’m a big believer in forced saving, by which I mean I have money transfer from my chequing account to my savings automatically throughout the month. I have control over the amount of funds but the movement is out of my hands. It moves no matter what so I have to make sure there’s money to move. This principal is great for my savings. However, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to apply it to myself. Unless I become a robot.

Pet care came in second. Animals are funny, they need routine. And food, water, and care. No matter what’s going on in my life those are three non-negotiables in their world. I clean the litter twice a day, totally clean the boxes every 3-4 weeks, feed them twice a day, and brush them about twice a week. They have all of this figured out too, so if I miss something they let me know.

All of these pet tasks have become second nature to me and I’ve built them into my morning and evening routines. If I can do the same with writing, I’ll be golden. It’s the thinking ahead of time about the writing that does me in, I think. The thought “I must go sit now for an indefinite period of time and create something from nothing” is crippling. I know it and yet I continue to do it.

Writing needs to become a second nature habit so that I don’t approach it like a chore. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do so much of the time.

Finally, the last item that made my list is early wakeups. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t do mornings. I hate them. The worst part of the day for me is getting up. All these people who say they love mornings because they like waking up with a whole, new day ahead of them are of a different species than me. And yet, I have to get up –sometimes before the sun!– in order to make it to work on time. Employers frown upon employees who don’t get up. I can force myself to wake up early, leave the house to be productive hours before I would do so on my own at home, then come home, hit the hay at a normal time and do it all over.

Again, I can do this for work but not for myself. Saboteur, I say.

Looking at the three items I came up with next to time management, it’s pretty obvious I have the tools and discipline in me to become a better time manager. It’s my over-thinking that’s getting me in trouble. I’ve said it so many times before and I know I’ll say it countless times again: habit is the key.

How are you at time management? If you have any tips to share I really want to hear them!

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