Episode 83: Time Management Resources

Transcript

Timea: 0:00

Welcome to season two of CEO Meets Homeschool. My name is Timea Parker, and I am both a CEO and homeschool mom to my four boys. Welcome to episode 83. So this is the first podcast I'm recording in the new year, and we also just launched season two, so everything feels kind of new and fresh, and I'm excited. I have a long lost buddy who I know helps run a company, and they sent me a question, and I thought that would be a great topic for today. The question is, what do you have for resources for time management? And of course I love time management, so this is kind of fun for me. What I'm going to do is I'll split it into two responses. One is for full time employees, W 2, folks that get W 2s, or could apply also for busy homeschool mamas. And then the other one will be those who own a business. And first off, that applies to both of those categories is It's really, you have to look at your calendar and that saying that I love, say no to everything so you can say yes to what's most important. Look at your calendar and think, what's on my calendar that I really hate, that takes away my energy, that I dread? What's on my schedule that I dislike, I never should have agreed to doing? Because it's not so much always starting with time management. It's actually starting to remove things off your plate. I think that's one of the most important things when you want to clear up some time. And a lot of, in many cases, if not most, the reason people are frustrated and they want more time or to get good at time management is they have other interests they want to pursue and they have no time. So, for example, if you are a W 2 employee, And you would really like to start a business and you're like, I literally have nothing in my schedule that would allow me to pursue this passion. That's a great example of you really have to, um, look at what you've committed to and figure out ways to free up time. It's not so much time management as it's everybody overcommitted and basically exhausted from what I've seen. So. If you are working full time, time management, my first step would be look at your calendar, look at your routine, your schedule, and see what you can get off of your calendar, what you can say no to, how you can clear up time. That's my suggestion for the most important thing. You don't need a podcast or a book to tell you to do that. The problem is, and I've been in many conversations, is that We're tied to things that we care about, and sometimes, and obviously, how should I say this, it's important, so we have a hard time stepping away from it, but it's those things that we're tied to that are important. That maybe we shouldn't be the ones running it that close the opportunity for you to move ahead on other things. I hope I said that clearly. So I can give you an example. I heard a conversation where I don't know if it was a nonprofit, but it was definitely some kind of organized group where it was helping a really great cause. And this person had carried this event or program for maybe 10 or 15 years, and they were. Saying they needed to step away from it, but it was such a great program. And that's a great example of something that you no longer have the energy to pursue. They wanted to say, spend more time with their family or start new projects and they couldn't. So you really have to start saying no to things. And when you're working full time or say even a homeschool mom and your schedule is like pretty locked in, you're going to have to look at. All of the adjustable things, so obviously you can't change your. Full time schedule I'm assuming unless you can switch to say a four day workweek and have an extra day something like that if there's any flexibility Possibly working from home sometimes so then you give back yourself time between commuting But other than that you're gonna have to look at your evenings and your weekends and start saying no to things so that you clear up this time and then the Really important thing is, is if you buy back your time, you give yourself the gift of time by saying no to certain things, say you clear up five hours a week, what you want to make sure is you assign that five hours to the thing you're trying to pursue. So it'll be a huge waste if you. Are wanting to start a business and you clear up five hours of time, and then you start watching Netflix for five hours a week, you want to definitely put it on the calendar that this new five hours you've cleared up goes toward steps in say, building that new business or spending time with your family, whatever it is. That you want this time to go towards. So that really is kind of how I would apply time management for those working or really busy homeschool moms. Now, when you own a business and you need time management, I think the best thing for me was when I really started time blocking and I've it's not perfect, but I've got it down to. And I have, right now I have two slots every week, and I actually do have a, a scheduler. So when I need somebody to, if I have a meeting that's coming up, the scheduler, they know when I'm available. They'll coordinate with whether it's a client or staff, and they'll put it on the calendar. And let me just go down a rabbit trail. I, you won't necessarily realize this until you experience it. And so I just want to give everybody a heads up what a powerful tool this is. Sometimes you will be on the call with someone and you're like, yes, let's get another meeting on the calendar. And so you hang up and then you have 20 more things that happen and you still need to plan this meeting and it takes energy to look at your calendar, send them an email, coordinate back and forth, because their schedule might be different. And when you have the ability to push that task off to somebody else, and then all of a sudden. You see that meeting almost immediately scheduled on your calendar and it wasn't additional energy taken away from you. It's a fantastic feeling and it allows me in those cases to keep Uh, addressing the issues that I need to address because somebody is helping me with some of the tasks that I don't have to use up additional time, especially when you're really hyper focused on being as productive as you can in the areas that you should be focused on. So. And that's kind of one of the big things that helped me with my business quite a bit. But I say this all the time, you need to read a book like Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy, or you should check out Dan Martell's book, Buy Back Your Time. It's a great resource, and some of them are pretty intense. I think in Dan Martell's book. He wants you to go two weeks and increment 15 minutes. You have to write what you do every 15 minutes from waking up till going to bed for two weeks. I was going to do that and I still haven't, but it's just kind of an example. You really have to sort of pull back the layers and identify what you should or shouldn't be doing. So I hope this was helpful to a few of you and it gave you a few ideas on ways to get more time back. Have a great day. If you have enjoyed today's episode, please consider liking and subscribing. This will help me reach more CEOs and homeschoolers. Thanks so much.