I am alive everyone! I’ve had a pretty crazy couple of weeks teaching, writing for new clients who make iPhone Apps and rent cabins in Tennessee, guest posting for Patrick Pho’s Quarter Life Crisis Series (@dmbosstone), getting ready for my upcoming trip to California, entertaining some family friends from Colombia that were staying over, hanging out with my relatives from New Jersey that dropped out of the sky and surprised us, my best friend’s graduation, coaching other bloggers, getting my physical fitness on at my local gym, and well, life. Needless to say it’s been a little crazy around these parts. In fact, just writing that gave me the urge for an extra shot of Cuban coffee.
I’ve mentioned before how I am horrible at managing my time. Granted, my teaching schedule can get pretty insane and unpredictable, but even when I’m not in the classroom I seem to have difficulty with the whole time management thing. Perhaps it’s because I’m a creative person and we creative folk don’t do well with the whole schedule thing. Or, maybe I just plain suck at it.
Seeing as how I’m trying to run a business and make a career out of writing here this could prove to be a huge problem. So, for what is probably the umpteenth time, I am going to attempt to actually follow my own advice on time management.
What To Do When Time Management Just Isn’t Happening
Take a step back and figure out your priorities.
If you are feeling overwhelmed chances are you have totally overbooked yourself. To quote Caroline when I told her I had a full day of teaching ahead, “You are really painting yourself into a corner there.” The worst part is I do it all the time. I like to stay busy and I like to get as much done as possible. My best friend says its in our nature as gen y women who want to do it all.
Either way, I have to invoke Jenny Blake’s advice and realize that no one is going to die if I don’t get everything done at once. I have to take a step back, prioritize, and take it little by little.
Forget about it and do something physical.
I find that going to the gym or doing yoga helps me when my mind if going at 100 mph (which believe me, is very often). I knew I had a full day of writing ahead of me today in an attempt to leave myself ready for the upcoming week of teaching so I freaked out a little.
Knowing that doing something physical helps me get it together, I showed up at my gym at 9 a.m. and had an hour and a half long session with my trainer. Did it kick my ass? Absolutely. But the stress melted away and it allowed me to focus on my work when I got back.
Make templates and systems.
Nothing saves time like having an email template ready to go for writing proposals and bids. This alone has been an absolute life saver that has allowed me to find new work while still working for others.
Have your planner handy (and always write in pencil).
I think that if I ever lost my Moleskine planner that I would die of a sudden heart attack or stroke. Seriously, I would either wander around aimlessly not knowing what to do next or my brain would explode from trying to remember everything.
Thanks to this wonderful planner I am able to see my work for the week, along with appointments, before it even starts. It’s like having a really big to-do list broken up into daily components. I always also make sure to write in pencil because life happens and sometimes things need to be switched around.
Schedule in setbacks.
I actually got this idea from Caroline. She wrote a great post about how to manage your time when working from home (especially when you have small kids) and it seemed to make sense. Life is always happening and you can’t control everything people! But you can allot some time just in case. For example, every third day Caroline doesn’t plan any fixed tasks, that way she can play catch up, run some errands, or do whatever else needs to be done.
This is definitely one tip I need to start implementing.
Here’s to another week of hard work and (hopefully) managing my time better.
Please let me know if you’re looking for a writer for your site. You have some really good posts and I feel I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some content for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please send me an e-mail if interested. Kudos!