5 Ways to Protect Your Time in 2022

Like many of us, you may start off your day with a long list of things to do and the next thing you know it’s 5PM and you have only checked off one item on your list. It seems like throughout the day no matter how hard we try to lock ourselves away, something or someone steals our time. The day is filled with distractions and you’re constantly reacting to the hottest thing at the moment. Or maybe you are great at protecting yourself from distractions and can complete important things in a timely manner but may find that it is the little things that slip through the cracks. These are all symptoms of poor time management. In 2022 things are changing and you will have complete control of your time. Repeat after me, I am a time management wizard.

What is a time management wizard? A time management wizard is someone who uses their time effectively, values time, concentrates their effort on the important things, gets more done in less time than others and can attend to a broad range of activities.

Honestly, I will say this is one of the most important skills to master in order to grow in your career. The higher you go the less time you have and the greater the workload.

Here are 5 ways you can protect your time this year and become skilled at managing your time:

1.       Plan ahead – this is the biggest factor in managing your time. If you don’t plan your day, someone else will plan it for you. If this is a new skill begin by planning one day ahead, once you have mastered this, move to a week and then a month. The further out you can plan, the better. The best place to start is with outlook; use the task feature for your to-do list and use time blocking which I will get into next.

2.       Use time blocking for routine tasks – with this method you are basically accounting for every minute in the day. First, you need to go accept, forward, or decline all meeting invitations. With the remaining open slots go in and create 45-minute meetings for your table stake tasks and mark them as busy. Yes, I said it, 45 minutes, I believe in breaks, use the 15 minutes to stretch your legs, use the restroom, etc. Breaks are extremely important to productivity. Once your table stake tasks are scheduled, create a meeting for your top 3.

3.       No more than 3 items on your to-do list each day – when you have too much too do, nothing gets done. This falls into the concept of the vital few which is derived from the pareto principle. The Law of the Vital Few and The Principle of Factor Sparsity, illustrates that 80% of effects arise from 20% of the causes – basically – 20% of your actions/activities will account for 80% of your results/outcomes. So why focus on the big to-do list when you can achieve great results from the vital few. Here’s what you can do, create a list of all your actions for the week, identify the ones that can only be done by you and are important, ones that can only be done by you but are not important, ones that can be done by someone else but are important, and ones that can be done by someone else but are not important. Your to-do list should only include the ones that can be done by you and are important.  Delegate ones that can be done by someone else but are important.

4.       Delegate when necessary – This is a skill in and of itself but necessary at every level. One question I get all the time is “can I delegate at my level” and the answer is yes! It’s simply asking your colleague for help when necessary and when that is not possible, raise your concern about the task to your manager so that they can help remove any roadblocks or solicit help.

5.       Lastly, learn to say no – you don’t have to be rude or mean but it is important to say no when you don’t have the bandwidth to complete a task. The magic of the planning and time blocking that you did earlier is that it can make it easier for you to say no. You can look at your calendar and honestly tell someone you don’t have the bandwidth to complete their request without feeling guilty.

Now that you are fully equipped, go out there and take your time back. Feel free to drop me a message on how these tips are working for you. It may be difficult at first but I promise if you stick with it, you will be reaping the rewards in no time.