With the start of the holiday season, the hustle bustle is officially underway. Adding another chapter to your "to do" list on an already over booked calendar can be a bit overwhelming. Now more than ever it's important to find a balance to help reduce stress levels. Prioritizing and blending responsibilities of life, business and holiday hustle bustle can be accomplished with a little forethought and planning of your emotional inventory.
Remain flexible. Time management should be about emphasizing the value of your time by creating life solutions. It is not meant to add stress with constricting schedules. It is about remaining flexible and observing how best your day can serve you. If your day is serving you best, you are able to serve others around you best! Getting started may seem a bit cumbersome, but once you recognize the value, you will appreciate the ability to maximize your day.
Keeping one calendar as opposed to several will alleviate stress and confusion while coordinating events. Additionally, keep in mind for your holiday shopping, personalized calendars and notebooks make great gifts! (visit www.ben-domprinting.com to order personalized journals) Now with your calendar filled out, you have a picture of what's to come. Let's take it a step further and find the time to get it all done!
Observing Patterns: By documenting your observations and writing down your daily activities sequentially, hour by hour, you will begin to identify patterns. Be general with what you write, however, remain consistent and write all activities down! Observe your life in motion for at least a week to allow a variety of occurrences. Visually assessing your recordings, you can begin to take a critical look at where you spend your time and how you feel while performing each activity throughout the day.
Start by coordinating a schedule of your daily activities in writing. When you visually organize your day you can begin to identify ways to accomplish maximum efficiency. Utilizing journals and calendars with note capability is a great way to keep organized. With the flip of a page you can view your daily events, activities and things to do all at your fingertips. Pencil in all your planned holiday events and notate what you will need to do to prepare. For example, shop, cook, pick up, travel, etc.
Mapping Your Time: After critically observing your routine, focus and assign value by grouping your observations in a visual map. For example: Carefree activities, Chores, Must Do, Travel, Cooking/Eating, Down Time, Networking, Monthly, Daily, Occasional, Marketing, Research. (However you choose to separate events & activities is fine) Continue with sub categories by identifying and notating comments that can be used for direction and goals. Recognize how much time you spend and the importance of each activity. Identify consistencies start grouping activities where they make sense. When you identify similarities in daily routines, you can assess your options. You will begin to recognize the amount of time you spend on each activity.
Take an emotional inventory: You will want to look not only at your actual activities, but consider identifying feelings, themes, and patterns. Do you recognize any recurring themes? Do you see a pattern of strength or weakness? Do you see consistent behaviors or activities that may be able to be consolidated? Do you recognize positive or negative patterns in observing your daily routines? Be cognizant of your emotions when answering some of these questions. Do you have a sense of satisfaction, comfort, happiness, sadness, loss? Critical observation will help you Identify patterns to plan for increasing or decreasing time allowances. You may also notice specific time patterns of behavior in your day. For example, mornings may be where you are most active. Perhaps you tire consistently at the same time daily, or you may notice consistent inactivity where you could utilize your time more efficiently.
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