3 Critical Steps to Giving Yourself Time Out – Guilt Free
We all have days when getting things done is harder than usual. But so often the pressure of deadlines means we have little choice but to keep going. The reality is though that you’ll probably achieve far less than if you’d walked away for a while.
Taking time out is not something we women find easy to do though. Countless women at workshops we’ve run have told us they feel guilty taking time for themselves, and that’s irrespective of whether they feel great or not.
So how can you feel comfortable about giving yourself an hour or even a day off? The secret lies in the way you manage time. Or put another way, in how you schedule your time.
Here are 3 critical steps to follow:
1. Get clear about your goals, both in work and personally and then refer back to these daily when setting your priorities. (See 7 tips to help you with prioritizing below). Doing this will ensure you’re spending time on what is moving you towards your goals.
2. Schedule your appointments in your diary, including your personal commitments. Schedule in blocks of time for tasks that require focused effort. Now this is the particularly important bit: Allow yourself wriggle room in your schedule so you can rework things if you find you’re struggling. If you end up powering through things then this extra time is an added bonus. You can get ahead by starting on your next priorities, or enjoy some unexpected time out.
3. When you are struggling to feel motivated, allow yourself time out, guilt free. It is over to you to work out how much time you’re able to take. But remember, make yourself a priority. It’s not how much time you put into your tasks, but what you do with that time. When you are feeling energetic and freshly inspired, you’ll achieve so much more.
We’ve learnt how important it is to give ourselves time out when we need it. So much so that we make it a priority and schedule it into our diaries. Val for example does Qi Chong at the beach twice a week. She was hesitant to do it originally because it ate into her work day but now finds she gets a lot more done than if she started 2 hours earlier.
She’s only been able to do this and keep on top of things though with good prioritising, scheduling and understanding of her Time Management Style. As a combination Juggling Julie and Last Minute Lucy she knows that if she isn’t clear of her priorities and scheduling in appointments, she will struggle to be productive each day, never mind make space for time out. She often watches whales breaching as they journey to or from their breeding grounds. What an amazing way to start the day.
Here are 7 tips to help with prioritising your time. There are a range of different ones and we’ll share these with you at other times because we know some will resonate with you more than others, depending on your Time Management Style.
1. Look at your daily list of things you want to get done and ask yourself: “If I could only do one thing on this list what would it be?” Then give this a number 1 priority.
2. Take remaining items on your list and ask the question again. Assign a number 2 priority.
3. Work your way through until all items are prioritized.
4. Have another look at your priorities to check they sit right for you. This is important because ultimately your priorities point you at what you really want to get out of life. At the same time they allow you to be ruthless about where you spend your time.
5. Remember: when you prioritise, don’t put the easy or less-important ones first because you’ll ‘get them out of the way’. Look at what you want to achieve.
6. Determine who else around you has a stake in your time (colleagues, family, friends) and get their buy-in to what you have to do
7. Recognise your priorities change over time, but they should always be moving you towards your goals.
We’ll talk another time about recording where your time goes and what that means for your priorities.
An eye opening exercise!
If you want to know more about Pink Shoe Power, go to the website or send us an email; contactus@pinkshoepower.com. We would love to hear from you.
