Overworked, overwhelmed, wiped right out. This might describe your role in the trades and at home. How can you effectively manage your time better? How can you maximize your efforts and get the most results on your time invested?
Time management isn’t just about getting things done, but it’s also about getting the right things done- not just the last minute things that make you feel accomplished and busy. Busy is the most dangerous word out there, a word I hate. You may be so busy you never accomplish anything of value. Don’t chase busyness for the quick dopamine hit of getting a lot of pointless work done. Dig your feet in and reap the rewards of being disciplined and effective at the things that are most important, not most urgent.
The Pareto principle suggests that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. That makes you wonder where you are wasting your time for no reason? Is there something that you do out of habit that is not a good use of time? Is there something you do because that’s the way it's always been done? Carefully study your daily habits and time constraints to reveal where your time could be more effectively used. Working until all your tasks are done is a sure fire way to never finish anything.
It’s physically impossible to get everything done that needs to get done in a day. If we stayed at work till all the paperwork, documentation, and cleanup was done we would never leave the jobsite.
The key to being an effective time manager is to be okay with everything that you are not doing. To be able to do this you need a way of sorting through all your jobs and tracking all your commitments. Jordan Raynour in “Redeeming your time” refers to this as a “commitment tracking system.” This will be a place on your phone where you track everything you need to do- at work and at home. Your brain is naturally horrible at multitasking and if you feel overwhelmed with the amount of things that demand your attention you’re not alone. Too much on your mind naturally makes you stressed out. Putting all these things into one place will free your mind and give you mental clarity. Again, the goal is not to get everything done at once but the goal is to be okay with what you’re not doing because you have everything stored inside your external brain.
For myself I use “Reminders” on iPhone. There are so many helpful apps out there like Trello and Microsoft To Do that are free and can work extremely well. I chose Apple Reminders for ease of use. It’s synced up with Siri so when something pops in my head I can just say hey siri and then tell siri to set a reminder for me and it will automatically go into my reminder app on my phone and I can sort these and complete the tasks when time allows.
For example: if I need to remember to call my Grandpa for his birthday on May 5, I say Hey Siri, set a reminder to call my Grandpa for his birthday on May 5 and Siri will automatically file that and put the date that your phone will remind you to do that activity.
Another tactic is to say something like Hey Siri, set a reminder to go over garage addition plans and do a take off. At first glance this is a large project that is simply overwhelming just to begin. The key here is to break them down into smaller tasks like David Allen suggests in his book “Getting things done.” Allen suggests here that we are more likely to start projects when we start with small pieces of the project to get the ball rolling. Experts suggest that starting a task is actually 50% of the effort. Think about this the next time you start a project that 50% of the effort is just beginning. Try dividing the “go over garage addition plans” into smaller sub tasks in your “reminders” app such as “do take off for all exterior 2x6 material” or “contact Hot and cold heating” for a quote for the HVAC in the home. Breaking down “big hairy audacious goals” as Jordan Raynour puts it is a great way to get large projects started and moving in small ways every single day. Ideally you want the task subdivided into 2 minute mini tasks that can be smashed when you have a spare couple minutes.
Challenge for this week
Download an app and start putting reminders in it. Try 5 days in a row of all the weird little things that pop into your head and capture them in one place. I guarantee this will set your mind more at ease as you become more comfortable with your “external brain”
See you in the pit!
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