It’s a new year, and most of us have resolutions that we intend to implement in the next 12 months. Realistically, and unfortunately, most of us will likely drop the ball on those resolutions.
We will look back on the year, and—if we even remember our resolutions—we’ll wonder where the time went. We’ll blame the lack of time for our failure to do what we set out to do.
Think back 12 months. Did you have plans for last year? Did you make resolutions? Did you prepare a strategic plan?
Did you get it all done? Did you get any of it done?
Year after year, we blame the lack of time for our failings. Unfortunately, we really have no idea where the time has gone.
This year should be different. I’ve got a plan for you. If you follow my suggestion, it probably won’t move you any further along the path toward achieving your resolutions, but you’ll know where the time went.
Here’s my suggestion:
Start a time log. I’m guessing that you’re already keeping up with your time so that you can bill hours. Just add to that list everything else that you do. Keep up with all of your activities regardless of whether they happen to be billable. The specific format of the log is irrelevant. The key is that you capture each and every thing that you do all day long so that you have a full record of how your time was spent. Some of you will automate the process with RescueTime or another product.
Keep this log for the next month. Be as detailed as possible. Use the log as a contemporaneous record of all of your activity. Don’t put off recording your activities until the end of the day because you’ll forget how you spent your time.
Once the month is over, go back to your time record with highlighters in several colors. Categorize your time using any system you choose. Figure out how much time you spent working on client matters, how much time you spent interacting with your staff, and how much time you simply wasted (Facebook, anyone?).
The objective is to give yourself some insight into where a month’s worth of time has gone. Hopefully, you’ll be surprised at the way you spend your time. Suddenly, you will know why most of us fail to achieve the objectives we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. There truly isn’t enough time because we’ve wasted so much time.
Once you’ve done some analysis of your time, figure out where the time wasters are. How much time are you spending dealing with the crisis of the day? How much time are you spending dealing with matters that should have been better systematized? How much time are you wasting doing unproductive things that you simply enjoy doing? How much time are the people that you work with causing you to waste by distracting you? You’ll find that you are wasting time in your own unique and special way.
Suddenly you have the knowledge to do something about recapturing your wasted time. The first step toward solving any problem is awareness. This exercise enables you to become aware of where your time is going.
Now, you’ll have to make a choice about whether you are willing to attack the time-wasting problem. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But at least you’ll know where it is that your time is going.
For most of us, knowing where our time is going is something we never figure out. We spend year after year wasting hundreds if not thousands of hours on things we didn’t even realize we were doing.
Creating the log will make you aware of what’s happening with your life.
We won’t get last year back, but maybe at the end of this year, you’ll have achieved some of your resolutions. Maybe that will be because you found the time you needed to actually work on the things you prioritized.
