4 steps to gain control of your time...

The coolest thing about my life now (aside from having 48 baby goldfish in a jar after rescuing eggs from my koi pond) is I decide how I'm going to spend my time in advance.

I basically budget my time for the entire week on Monday mornings.

I decide the results I want to create, what I need to do to get it, and then I schedule it. 

I used to feel exhausted because I would be so busy but never had much to show for it. Spinning my wheels.

But that doesn’t happen to me anymore.

Never.

I used to spend a lot of time, energy, and resources tracking how I spent my money, but I never thought of time the same way.

Time just happened.

We can always make more money. 

We can find a $100 bill in a parking lot. 

We can win the lottery. 

We can lose all of our money and make more. 

But we don't get our time back. Ever. One and done. 

We will never find an extra weekend lying in a parking lot somewhere. 

I remember the first time I thought of it that way, and it totally shifted me.

I thought about my previous week and how I would feel if I found out I had one week left to live.

And I would have felt like a jackass, jk, kinda.

I spent my previous week beating myself up over not getting more accomplished, feeling completely stuck in my life, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I was waiting for something to change, the universe to fix it.

I did not "budget" my time back then. I felt like scheduling your time was super restrictive and far too dull and predictable.

I had a list of things I needed to do, things I should do, and I usually had a few goals floating around most of the time.

I'd wake up, get ready, tackle the day by following the appointments on the calendar and using my to-do list as a guide for what I should be doing the rest of the time.

But what I couldn't see is working from a to-do list is the hardest way to make significant progress.

Close to impossible. 

Our brains are hard-wired to do the fun and easy things that use the least amount of energy. 

So naturally, I would look at the list and pick the things I felt like doing at the moment. Usually, the fun stuff (that I was good at) or the easy stuff so I could quickly check the boxes off. 

But I rarely picked the things that would have moved the needle.

“Ugh, I am not in the right mindset to do this.”

“I'll do it tomorrow (and then it would stay on the list for 4 weeks, lol).”

“I just don't have the energy.” 

“I need to be more prepared.”

My brain was doing what it’s supposed to do, and I had no clue how to manage it.

I would spend more time avoiding and dreading a task than it would have taken me just to do the task.  

And I did this week after week, month after month, busy, working hard, and feeling exhausted.

And barely moving the needle. 

Swimming against the current. 

I still work hard (because I love working hard), but I'm doing it the effective way now.  

It's not always easy. Growth can be painful. 

But feeling hopeless, flawed, exhausted, and unproductive is significantly more painful. 

If this sounds and looks like your situation, please know that nothing is wrong with you.

Again for those of you in the back. Nothing is wrong with you. 

Below are some baby steps to help you get started going in the right direction.

🎯 Step 1: First, you need to gain awareness of how you are spending your time. Track it for the next week. Do a time audit. Try to do it from a place of curiosity (not judgment or beating yourself up.) Do it on paper or add time blocks to your digital calendar, doesn't matter, just pick the one you're most likely to keep up with for the full week.

🎯 Step 2: Next, decide how you're going to spend your time in advance for the following week. Start small. Decide which hour of the day you're least likely to get distracted and block that time slot on your calendar.

🎯 Step 3: On Monday morning (or Sunday night), decide what you are going to do with that hour for the entire week. What result do you want to create? What are the most critical actions you need to take to get that result? Schedule it. Update each appointment to include what you will do for that hour. 

🎯 Step 4: Follow your schedule. Honor your commitment. Assume you are not going to feel like doing it when that hour rolls around. Because you probably won’t. Do it anyway. It takes time to develop this skill but learning how to do this one thing alone will transform your life.

What would your life look like if you committed to learning how to do this? Imagine the impact of deciding how to spend your time in advance and actually following through on that commitment? It’s everything.

It's not always easy, but wasting time and living a life by default is excruciating and unnecessary.

You are worth it. Your life is worth it. We don’t get a do-over.

When you are ready to master these skills, I can help you. Book your call to learn how. 

Machele Galloway is a Certified Life Coach through The Life Coach School. She's based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and specializes in helping her clients manage their time and their minds. She firmly believes that you can't manage one without managing the other. She virtually coaches women nationwide. If she isn't coaching clients, she is studying concepts and techniques. And if she isn't doing that, she's probably playing with a dog or watching the Real Housewives of some city. - “Life is short. Play a little.”